Providing for Consideration of H.R. Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to bring forward this rule on behalf of the Rules Committee.

The rule provides for consideration of H.R. 1865, the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017. The rule provides for 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. The rule also provides for a motion to recommit.

In addition to an amendment offered by the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the rule makes in order amendments offered by Mrs. Mimi Walters of California and Ms. Jackson Lee of Texas.

Yesterday, the Rules Committee received testimony from numerous Members, including Mr. Marino, Ms. Jackson Lee, and the legislation's sponsor, Mrs. Wagner.

In addition to consideration at the Rules Committee, the legislation was marked up at the House Judiciary Committee last year.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot think of any crime more debased than when one person forces a fellow human being into sexual slavery.

Through many pieces of legislation that the House considered this year, we have been fighting to rid our communities of sex traffickers and the anguish they leave in their wake. Today, we have the opportunity to pass an important piece of legislation that will further this fight by ensuring that we hold websites that turn a profit by aiding sex traffickers accountable.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the committee for its hard work on this legislation, but also, more, importantly, I would like to thank the legislation's author, Mrs. Wagner, for her tireless efforts in championing this bill, which extends both compassion and justice to trafficking victims. As a result of her efforts, the legislation we consider today will empower law enforcement, State attorneys general, and, most importantly, victims to fight against the sex trade and its predators.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation would give Federal, State, and local prosecutors the tools they need to hold websites and their operators accountable for supporting the sale of sex trafficking victims. Specifically, it would create a new Federal statute with increased penalties for promoting sex trafficking online and would amend section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to permit State authorities to prosecute operators of trafficking websites for criminal acts.

In consideration of this legislation, we must also reflect on why this legislation is necessary.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act was created to ensure that websites would not be considered the publishers of, and thereby held responsible for, the content that actually originated with a third party. The statute was never intended to shield websites that profit by creating a marketplace for sexual slavery, like Backpage.com, from facing the legal consequences of their criminal enterprises.

Nevertheless, some websites have successfully invoked the section 230 immunity provision despite engaging in actions that venture far outside the scope of those envisioned by the statute. The authors of the Communications Decency Act did not imagine that wicked men and women would turn vulnerable young people into sexual commodities and then say, ``Let's protect those predators.''

Mr. Speaker, no law condones such sexual exploitation, and no law should be manipulated to condone such abuse. With the addition of Mrs. Walters' amendment, this legislation strikes the important balance of preserving section 230 of the Communications Decency Act for law- abiding websites, while ensuring that bad actors can no longer hide behind a misused statute.

This legislation will ensure that our society continues to protect the innocent and punish those who seek to profit from their sexual enslavement.

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Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I am prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Judiciary Committee, I am proud to support H.R. 1865, the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017.

This legislation will prevent websites like Backpage from hiding behind section 230 of the Communications Decency Act while simultaneously empowering law enforcement, State attorneys general, and victims to fight against the sex trade and its predators. I look forward to supporting this rule and the underlying bill.

The material previously referred to by Ms. Slaughter is as follows: An Amendment to H. Res. 748 Offered by Ms. Slaughter

At the end of the resolution, add the following new sections:

Sec. 2. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution the Speaker shall, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 3440) to authorize the cancellation of removal and adjustment of status of certain individuals who are long-term United States residents and who entered the United States as children and for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. All points of order against provisions in the bill are waived. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill to the House with such amendments as may have been adopted. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit with or without instructions. If the Committee of the Whole rises and reports that it has come to no resolution on the bill, then on the next legislative day the House shall, immediately after the third daily order of business under clause 1 of rule XIV, resolve into the Committee of the Whole for further consideration of the bill.

Sec. 3. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the consideration of H.R. 3440. ____ The Vote on the Previous Question: What It Really Means

This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote. A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote against the Republican majority agenda and a vote to allow the Democratic minority to offer an alternative plan. It is a vote about what the House should be debating.

Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of Representatives (VI, 308-311), describes the vote on the previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or control the consideration of the subject before the House being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said: ``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first recognition.''

The Republican majority may say ``the vote on the previous question is simply a vote on whether to proceed to an immediate vote on adopting the resolution. . . . [and] has no substantive legislative or policy implications whatsoever.'' But that is not what they have always said. Listen to the Republican Leadership Manual on the Legislative Process in the United States House of Representatives, (6th edition, page 135). Here's how the Republicans describe the previous question vote in their own manual: ``Although it is generally not possible to amend the rule because the majority Member controlling the time will not yield for the purpose of offering an amendment, the same result may be achieved by voting down the previous question on the rule. . . . When the motion for the previous question is defeated, control of the time passes to the Member who led the opposition to ordering the previous question. That Member, because he then controls the time, may offer an amendment to the rule, or yield for the purpose of amendment.''

In Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. It is one of the only available tools for those who oppose the Republican majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the opportunity to offer an alternative plan.

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