I feel sorry for gamers in Utah. UPDATE: Bill has been Vetoed!

[Halifirien]

The House has passed it. It now moves to the Senate and then to the governor's desk.

 

[Zoolander]

You guys are talking like minors have ever had any real constitutional rights. Please lol, freedom of speech for minors? I'm only 21 and can remember being a minor and I most certainly never had any freedom of speech. I'm not saying its right, but ignoring/refusing to give minors their first amendment rights is hardly something uncommon. Students in general have always had to fight for their own free speech, just look at SDS in the 60's.

 

[Gerry]

Bump.

VETOED!!!!

Jack Thompson e-mailed GamePolitics a few minutes ago to say that Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R) has vetoed HB 353, the video game/movie bill passed overwhelmingly by the Utah House and Senate.

We've also confirmed this with another source in Utah.

According to Thompson, backers of the bill plan to seek an override of the Guv's veto.

We're hearing (not from Thompson) that the word on the street is that retailers lobbied the Guv energetically.

GP: Color me surprised. I did not think that Huntsman would buck the legislature on this one.

UPDATE: Saintless has Gov. Huntsman's explanation of his veto:

After careful consideration and study, I have decided to veto HB 353...

While protecting children from inappropriate materials is a laudable goal, the language of this bill is so broad that it likely will be struck down by the courts as an unconstitutional violation of the Dormant Commerce Clause and/or the First Amendment.

The industries most affected by this new requirement indicated that rather than risk being held liable under this bill, they would likely choose to no longer issue age appropriate labels on goods and services.



Therefore, the unintended consequence of the bill would be that parents and children would have no labels to guide them in determining the age appropriateness of the goods or service, thereby increasing children’s potential exposure to something they or their parents would have otherwise determined was inappropriate under the voluntary labeling system now being recognized and embraced by a significant majority of vendors.

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/03/25/breaking-utah-governor-vetoes-video-gamemovie-bill

 

[Gerry]

Terming it "a bullet dodged," the Salt Lake Tribune has lauded Gov. John Huntsman's veto of HB 353 in an editorial.

Although it did not mention the disbarred Miami attorney, the editorial was unsparing in its criticism of the Jack Thompson-conceived bill:

Somehow, this misguided piece of legislation zoomed through the Legislature with hardly an opposing vote, and, we suspect, without a thorough vetting...

This was patently ridiculous legislation, easily challenged in court as unconstitutional...

The bill ignored the fact... [that] the ratings can provide helpful information to parents, but should not supercede a parent's decision to let a child buy a game or DVD. In that, HB353 flew in the face of Utah's traditional support of parents' rights...

Is that really what legislators believed they were voting for... ? Probably not, but the legislation's broad language invited a whole set of consequences that were not intended...

In their misplaced zeal to limit access to media they don't like, our legislators might have eliminated the very tools parents need to set limits on what their children see and hear. We dodged a bullet on this one. Having misfired badly, the Legislature should not bring it up again.

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/03/26/leading-utah-newspaper-applauds-veto-jack-thompson-bill

Meanwhile, the idiot who sponsored this "bill" blames the gamers and is seeking to veto the veto.

As GamePolitics reported yesterday, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman vetoed HB 353, the Jack Thompson video game/movie bill that would have targeted retailers who sold M-rated games or R-rated movies to minors.

The sponsor of the bill, Rep. Mike Morley (R-UT), told the Salt Lake Tribune:

I think it's simply a result of an e-mail campaign from a lot of gamers that misrepresent the bill and [the governor's staff] has not studied it closely enough to recognize that is not the case. I think it was crafted very carefully to avoid those issues and I think they're mistaken.

However, a source close to Utah state politics told GamePolitics yesterday that Gov. Huntsman was the subject of intense lobbying from retailers. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the Entertainment Software Association mounted a major lobbying campaign as well.

Morley complained to the Deseret News that the Guv didn't give him a courtesy call before vetoing the bill:

I would have thought that just common courtesy would have been to call me.

Legislators are now deciding whether to pursue an override of the veto.

What an asshole.