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CD-ROM Aktief 1995 #3
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1994-02-22
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SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS
Copyright 1988, San Jose Mercury News
DATE: Thursday, August 25, 1988
PAGE: 1E EDITION: Morning Final
SECTION: California News LENGTH: 18 in. Medium
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: Sacramento
*ANTI-PORNOGRAPHY*BILL APPEARS DOOMED
Legislation that would tighten California's*anti-pornography* laws was in
effect killed Wednesday in the state Senate by a vote referring it to a
committee that had killed similar bills earlier this year.
But opponents of the bill, led by Senate President Pro Tem
David*Roberti,*D-Los Angeles, said there is still time to enact a less severe
measure tightening California's obscenity laws. They said they would work to
push such a measure through before the Legislature adjourns its 1987-88
session next Wednesday.
Both sides said they support a stronger obscenity law to curb what some
law enforcement reports describe as a $1 billion a year
California*pornography*industry, but they disagreed on how to do that.
The key issue in the legislative battle is whether new
anti-*pornography*standards should be left to each individual community in
California to set, which church leaders and conservative lawmakers advocate,
or if standards should be adopted on a statewide basis, as liberals and
various publishing and broadcasting interests prefer.
But technically the issue before the Senate Rules Committee Wednesday
wasn't any specific provision of the obscenity bill or even choosing between
the competing proposals.
Instead, the Wednesday vote was over whether amendments made earlier this
month by the Assembly, before its lopsided 57-14 approval of SB 5 by Sen.
Wadie Deddeh, D-Chula Vista, were substantial enough to trigger rules sending
it back to the Senate Judiciary Committee for a new hearing.
Surprisingly, the conservative Democrat expected to be the swing vote on
the five-member Rules Committee, Sen. Henry Mello of Watsonville, voted to
send the measure to the full Senate, where final passage was described as
almost certain. But a moderate Republican, Sen. Bill Craven of Carlsbad,
sided with*Roberti*and voted to send the bill back to the Judiciary
Committee.
''I have trouble with community standards. I want a statewide standard,''
Craven, who was silent through most of the hearing, told reporters later.
''Nobody's for*pornography.*But a lot of people the bill has no interest
in would be affected (by the community standard approach). When you go into
libraries and start pulling books off the shelves, you're taking a lot upon
yourself,'' Craven said.
He added that he had received ''political threats -- somewhat less than
subtle -- that it's going to follow you all your life'' if he voted against
sending the bill to the Senate floor. He declined to say who made those
threats, but made it clear they came from conservatives.
Deddeh said his bill was only codifying the so-called ''Miller standard''
adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 and complained that opponents were
rich pornographers who ''pretend to have an absolute devotion to the First
Amendment.''
He said under his bill, each of California's 58 county district attorneys
would have the discretion to enforce the standards appropriate for each
community, rather than be bound by what Deddeh predicted would be more
liberal statewide standards reflecting values of places such as San Francisco
or Hollywood.
But*Roberti,*who is both Democratic leader of the Senate and chairman of
the Rules Committee, countered that ''community standards will create
red-light districts.''
*Roberti,*who represents the Hollywood area, said he would not let backers
of Deddeh's bill ''make my district a disposal ground (for sexually oriented
businesses) so others can go home and feel they've done something for their
districts.''
While church groups lined up behind Deddeh,*Roberti's* position was
supported by the California Broadcasters Association, the California
Newspaper Publishers Association, the California Library Association, the
American Civil Liberties Union and the Motion Picture Association of America.
KEYWORDS: *PORNOGRAPHY*LEGISLATION
END OF DOCUMENT.