On Monday afternoon, it seemed like the bipartisan coalition seeking to enact age verification for pornography sites in South Dakota was finally going to succeed. But then, it all fell apart again.
The members of the state Senate who supported HB 1257 successfully “smoked out” the bill and brought it to the floor after four Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee tabled it last week. But as the bill moved to a floor vote, Senate President Pro Tempore Lee Schoenbeck succeeded in adopting an amendment to the bill that would merely study the issue over the summer, effectively killing the legislation.
There remains hope that the bill could pass this year. The legislation now heads to a conference committee, and it could be revived. But the painstaking process the bill has undergone is baffling for a topic that
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