Will Conservative Push for Obscenity Prosecutions Bear Fruit?

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Earlier this month, four Republican members of Congress sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr in which they urged Barr to “declare the prosecution of obscene pornography a criminal justice priority” and to encourage the U.S. Attorneys beneath Barr to “bring prosecutions against the major producers and distributors of such material.”

In their letter, the lawmakers also reminded Barr that during the 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump “signed the first-ever anti-pornography pledge” and noted that “15 state legislatures have declared that pornography is a causing a public health crisis.”

It’s not the first time Barr has been reminded of his boss’ campaign pledge; just under a year ago, Enough is Enough, the same anti-porn group that authored the pledge, called upon Barr to uphold Trump’s pledge before he had even been confirmed as Attorney General.

As noted by Vox in an article published shortly after the lawmakers sent their letter to Barr, there appears to be a good deal of momentum among social conservatives to push for stronger regulation of pornography – or even an outright ban on porn – over the last couple years.

Of course, not everyone on the righthand side of the political spectrum favors such measures. Among libertarians, calls for strict regulations of pornography smacks of government overreach and Nanny State meddling in the private lives of Americans – a perspective often heard from publications like Reason, for example.

Vox terms the ideological split on porn within the Republican party as a “conservative civil war,” which is more than a touch hyperbolic, but it does perhaps explain something I noticed about the letter sent by the four Congressional Republicans (Mark Meadows of North Carolina,  Jim Banks of Indiana, Vicky Hartzler of Missouri, and Brian Babin of Texas) earlier this month.

If you look at the media/press sections of the websites for Meadows, Banks, Hartzler and Babin, you’ll find they each put out statements just about every time they sponsor legislation, sign on to a letter or introduce a resolution. What you won’t see on any of their sites is a press release calling attention to the letter they sent Barr.

If these members of Congress believe that tighter regulation of porn, renewal of obscenity prosecutions or other anti-porn measures are both a good idea and something that would appeal to their constituents, why wouldn’t they call attention to the letter? I can think of two reasons why the four lawmakers didn’t make much noise about their missive, both of which come down to politics, more so than ideology.

First is, as the letter notes, Trump’s pledge to crack down on porn marks a campaign promise on which the President has offered absolutely zero follow-up. Calling too much attention to their letter to Barr risks being seen as calling out Trump – something that might not go down well with Trump’s supporters, and certainly wouldn’t go over well with the President himself, who is famously pugnacious in response to criticism, even when the criticism comes from his political allies.

Second, to the extent there are Republican voters who want nothing to do with any sort of crackdown on porn, the lawmakers are probably keen not to stir up such people unnecessarily. Keeping things quiet on their letter writing campaign enables them to exert some pressure on Barr (and by proxy, on Trump) without making too many headlines that might put frowns on the faces of libertarian-leaning republicans, or independent voters who oppose government intrusion on their private entertainments and pastimes.

The disadvantage to the quiet approach, of course, is embodied in the old saying “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” By not squeaking loudly enough, conservatives who want to push the Trump Administration into initiating widespread obscenity prosecutions, establishing new regulations aimed at the porn industry or otherwise cracking down on porn risk being ignored, simply because the Administration might conclude the political cost of ignoring them is minimal.

On the other hand, if Trump were to be reelected next November, the political algebra of a potential porn crackdown changes significantly. A lame duck president needn’t concern himself with ostracizing libertarians, because two term in the oval office is all the (current) law allows.

The prospect of Lame Duck Trump doesn’t make the question any clearer, unfortunately for those of us trying to predict whether a renewal of obscenity prosecutions is likely. After all, by the same token that a lame duck doesn’t need to worry about angering republican voters who enjoy porn, the lame duck doesn’t much need the support of a handful of Congressional republicans, either.

All that said, my hunch is the current republican push for a crackdown on porn will not have much impact. I could see the Trump DOJ initiating a handful of prosecutions (much like the George W. Bush Administration did during its second term), but a return to the days of a true crackdown, the likes of which we haven’t experienced since George H.W. Bush occupied the Oval Office, seems to me every bit as unlikely as the prospect of Trump being convicted by the Republican-controlled Senate in the ongoing impeachment proceedings.

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