Political Quotes

“Mr. President, today, Senators Merkley and Burr and I are introducing the Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act of 2010. The bill would criminalize the creation, sale, distribution, advertising, marketing, and exchange of animal crush videos. Representative Gallegly has sponsored a House companion bill, the Prevention of Interstate Commerce in Animal Crush Videos Act, H.R. 5566. Animal crush videos often depict obscene, extreme acts of animal cruelty designed to appeal to a specific, prurient sexual fetish. These crush videos were the target of a 1999 Federal statute that the United States Supreme Court struck down earlier this year in U.S. v. Stevens. In Stevens, the Supreme Court overturned the 1999 Act banning depictions of animal cruelty on the basis that it was unconstitutionally overbroad, in violation of the First Amendment. The Stevens case did not involve crush videos and the Court specifically stated that it was not deciding whether a statute limited to crush videos would be constitutional. Instead it left the door open for Congress to enact a narrowly tailored ban on animal crush videos. Our legislation would ban animal crush videos that fit squarely within the obscenity doctrine, a well-established exception to the First Amendment. The Senate Judiciary Committee received testimony earlier this month on the obscene nature of crush videos. Dr.…”