Adult Performers and Business Leaders In Sacramento to #StopAB1576 – Live Updates

Today’s hearing on #AB1576 is in the Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism & Internet Media Committee.

Room change to 127. Tiny room and filled with SF talent, directors, etc…

Director/performer/Free Speech Coalition board member Mo Reese is here with performer Alex Chance. Reese is in the front row, seated beside FSC CEO Diane Duke. Behind them is Kayden Kross.

The UCLA contingent just arrived with Darren James

The hearing is standing room only.

Cameron Bay is sitting with AB 1576’s sponsor, Isadore Hall (D-AHF). He’s giving her some last minute instructions…

9:05 Chairman not here yet

Opposition list:

Supporters:

Assemblymember Isadore Hall is starting. He falsely claims up to 5 transmissions in 2013.

He wants to have 14 day testing enforced by state law.

Hall claims businesses won’t move to Nevada — the idea is “malarkey”, he says — and states (incorrectly) that shooting adult content is illegal everywhere California and New Hampshire.

AHF’s Rand Martin claims this bill aligns with Cal OSHA. Not true.

AHF claims that sex work laws in Nevada will apply to performers. This is BS. Prostitution is not performing. Massive misinformation coming from AHF.

Cameron Bay claims she had to pay for her breast augmentation herself.

Rod Daily says he was in the adult industry for 8 years and used condoms.

Daily and Bay both lie to the committee: Bay says she was only in porn 3 months. Lie. As reported here, Bay has been an adult performer since 2008.

Daily says he maintained regular testing. Lie.

Now it’s the opposition’s turn…

First up is attorney Marc Randazza. He corrects AHF and Hall’s false statements about the legality of shooting porn in Nevada, and explains that the prostitution laws (including those that require condoms) specifically exclude adult production.

There has been a conflation, in prior testimony, of sex work —  and they’ve been saying this seems to be a catch-all phrase. It is not. Nevada has very specific and strict prostitution statutes. However, filming adult movies in Nevada, and frankly in all 50 states, is legal.

The misunderstanding, I think, comes from the fact that there are two state supreme court cases, one in California, one in New Hampshire, which specifically state that filming adult movies in those states is not prostitution, and specifically state that the free speech clause of both the New Hampshire constitution and the First Amendment [to the U.S. Constitution] say that you could not interpret it as prostitution.

The fact that there have been no such cases in other states yet does not mean that those states do not permit it. In fact, in Nevada, last year, there was an effort to change the prostitution statute so that hit would not be like California’s, so that it would state [that] any sexual contact of any kind would be prostitution. Not only was that measure withdrawn, that measure was withdrawn by the attorney general because the attorney general understood the logic in Freeman vs. California. So, the legislative history of the Nevada prostitution statute at this point specifically exempts adult film production. So, it’s perfectly legal in Nevada, protected in Nevada.

Adult star Kayden Kross is speaking on occupational sex, and specifically to the medical record keeping requirements of AB 1576. Huge privacy issue under California constitution, and she objects to non-medical personnel having access to her private medical information.

Says she has always had the option to use condoms; only chose to do so once and never again because of the friction and discomfort.

She points to signed petitions from over 200 other performers who do not want AB 1576.

Valley Independent Commerce Association president Stuart Waldman speaking now to represent San Fernando Valley business owners in opposition to AB 1576.

Diane Duke, Mo Reese, Lorelei Lee, Alex Chance speak in opposition.

An editor asserts that it would cost a million dollars a month to digitally remove condoms from all her company’s videos…

Kink.com founder Peter Acworth says, “We don’t want to go to Nevada, but we’re already making plans to do just that.”

Performer/director Amber Chase speaks in opposition. This will affect real life couples as well as her art.

Matt Mason of Treasure Island Media and Kink’s Princess Donna speak in opposition.

Princess Donna points out that this bill would require much more than condoms, and that industry testing protocols have stopped EVERY case of HIV (all contracted off set since 2004) from being transmitted to anyone on set.

Attorney Karen Tynan notes that the Measure B suit is still ongoing, and this bill is premature.

Assemblymember Cheryl Brown asks why, if condoms will fix everything, does the bill require testing?

She cites the performers’ opposition on the basis of chafing and increased risk of transmission.

Now Rod is addressing vaginal chaffing…

Assemblymember Brown is asking great questions!!!

She sees problems with the effectiveness of the bill; asks why condoms are not required for oral, seeing as how many STDs can be transmitted orally.

A ridiculous rant from AHF Assemblypuppet Isadore Hall now — he is practically screaming — comparing AB 1576 to laws preventing the use of cell phones while driving.

Bay is crying and being hugged by Darren James.

Daily sits alone.

Isadore Hall says “these actors” contracted HIV because they weren’t offered a condom! In reality, the last performers who contracted HIV on set were infected by Darren James in 2004 — before adult performer testing protocols were updated. Bay and Daily could not have been infected on a porn set because none of their scene partners are HIV-positive.

Hall lies to the Committee once gain, saying that this bill is the same as Measure B, and that the supreme court has found Measure B to be constitutional.

See the testimony before the committee in this video: