Arizona will not require age verification for porn sites after governor vetoes GOP bill

Arizona will not be the latest state to require identification to access websites with adult content after Gov. Katie Hobbs nixed a measure to do so Monday.

In a veto letter, Hobbs said House Bill 2586 went against settled case law. She said children's online safety was a pressing issue, but "while we look for a solution, it should be bipartisan and work within the bounds of the First Amendment, which this bill does not."

Hobbs vetoed the bill and four others on Monday, including a measure that opponents said would have given property owners dangerous leeway to harm others under the guise of self-defense.

So far this year, Hobbs has vetoed 23 bills sent to her desk.

The Democratic governor is likely to announce more vetoes in the coming days given the number of bills sitting on her desk. Lawmakers last week sent her dozens of bills before dropping to a reduced schedule, meeting once a week.

Last year, she had killed 43 bills as of April 10. That period marked her first 100 days in office and the earliest days of a power split at the Capitol not seen in 14 years with a Democratic governor and Republican-majority Legislature. Hobbs ended the year with a record-breaking 143 vetoes.

The identification bill, sponsored by Yuma Republican Rep. Tim Dunn, would have require websites that feature “material harmful to minors” to verify the ages of users either by asking for identifying information or using data systems to cross reference identifying information. Other states have implemented similar requirements, largely targeting pornography, and prompting online porn giant Pornhub to cut off access in those states.

Dunn said he disagreed with the veto, and had worked with stakeholders to make sure the bill protected children while being easy to implement. He said he was "committed to continuing work in the future to see that we do pass laws that protect our children when online."

Age verification, he said, "should not be a big ask."

Opponents of the Arizona bill included First Amendment advocacy groups, who said identification policies infringed on adults' rights to use the internet.

Hobbs also vetoed a bill requiring school districts to set policies for the use of internet and social media, House Bill 2793. She wrote that it created an unnecessary mandate for an issue schools were already tackling.

And she nixed House Bill 2843, which amended state law often known as "castle doctrine" that determines when deadly force can be used in self-defense. The bill widened when such force was justified, to include when someone is on another's property, not just when they are coming into a structure like someone's home.

Rep. Justin Heap, R-Mesa and a candidate for Maricopa County recorder, said in a committee meeting his bill was a response to the numbers of migrants and human traffickers on Arizona farm and ranch land. The bill was introduced amid a high-profile prosecution of a Nogales rancher charged with murder after shooting a Mexican citizen on his land last year.

Opponents including Moms Demand Action, an anti-gun violence group, said the bill was "a callous attempt to vilify immigrants and put them at even further risk."

Hobbs sided with those groups, vetoing the measure she said "values property over human life and incentivizes vigilantism."

"This is yet another example of extremists in the Arizona legislature," she wrote.

Reach reporter Stacey Barchenger at [email protected] or 480-416-5669.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: AZ governor vetoes GOP bill on online adult content age verification