Arizona Lawmaker Criticizes Katie Hobbs’s Veto of Bill Criminalizing Filming Porn at Public Schools

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs delivers her State of the State address at the Arizona Capitol in Phoenix on Jan. 9, 2023. Ross D. Franklin/AP Photo

An Arizona state lawmaker criticized Gov. Katie Hobbs on Monday for vetoing a bill that sought to make it a crime to film pornography at public schools and shield minors from sexually explicit materials.

State Sen. Jake Hoffman, a Republican, introduced Senate Bill 1696 after two Mohave County teachers—spouses who worked at different schools in the same district—were fired after students and parents found pornographic material that the pair had filmed in one of their classrooms and posted online.

In a scorching statement, Hoffman, who wanted such acts to be illegal, highlighted Hobbs’s veto as being indicative of Democrats’s far-left extremism and a disregard for the well-being of Arizona’s youth.

“It’s absolutely sickening that Katie Hobbs is allowing pornography to be filmed in our state’s taxpayer-funded classrooms. These should be safe spaces for our kids to learn in, not venues for the sexually explicit adult entertainment industry,” Hoffman said.

“No 12-year-old child should ever have to worry that their middle school desk was the location of a porn shoot, yet because of Hobbs’s actions, this is precisely the case,” he continued in an apparent appeal to parental outrage. “Hobbs should be ashamed of herself, and every parent in the state of Arizona should be outraged.”

In her veto letter, Hobbs described the bill as a thinly veiled effort to ban books.

“I have vetoed SB 1696. While I agree that not all content is appropriate for minors, this bill is a poor way to address those concerns,” Hobbs wrote (pdf). “The sponsor has stated that this bill was aimed at preventing a specific action from reoccurring, while in reality it is written in such a vague manner that it serves as little more than a thinly veiled effort to ban books.”

The Bill

The vetoed bill prevents employees of government agencies in Arizona from “exposing minors to sexually explicit materials.”

Democrats are concerned this provision may potentially restrict public librarians from recommending certain literary works and books covering topics such as reproduction and puberty to teenagers.

However, current law already has exemptions. The existing regulations restrict public schools from referring students to or using sexually explicit materials unless they possess serious educational, literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. Moreover, parental consent, obtained on a per-material basis, is mandatory for the use of such materials.

Before Hobbs vetoed the bill, state Sen. Priya Sundareshan, a Democrat, took issue with Hoffman framing the issue as a “practice of filming pornography in buildings funded by taxpayer dollars.”

“Certainly calling one isolated incident a ‘practice of filming pornography’ is misleading,” Sundareshan told the Arizona Mirror. “This is definitely not a widespread practice,” she added.

After the state House passed the bill, Hoffman called on Hobbs on June 1 to sign the legislation, saying, “Astonishingly, there is no law that prohibits this from happening.”

Hoffman took issue with the activities of the two teachers who both worked for Lake Havasu Unified School District, not being illegal under current state law. His bill would have made it a class 5 felony to film or facilitate sexually explicit acts in schools and other government property.

The bill defines sexually explicit material as anything that includes textual, visual, or audio content depicting sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or ultimate sexual acts.

The bill would have made it illegal for offices, boards, commissions, political subdivisions, and their contractors to expose minors to sexually explicit materials. Contractors working with these entities would also be required to abide by the same rules.

The bill received final approval in the House on May 15 and was sent to the governor on May 30.