Prairie State Wire

U.S. Sen Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) blocked a bill meant to stiffen the penalties for those in possession of child pornography.

U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) asked for a unanimous consent to pass the PROTECT Act of 2022, which is meant to safeguard children from sexual exploitation by strengthening the penalty for possessing child pornography and prohibiting judges from sending criminals to prison below the federal standard. Durbin objected to the unanimous consent request.

“The fact that the Senate hasn’t acted until now, is, I think, is shameful for the Senate," Hawley said of Durbin’s actions. "But why wait another day? I am not willing to sit by and tell the parents of my state that I did nothing. I am not willing to dismiss child exploitation as just some conspiracy theory. I am not willing to abandon the victims of this crime.” 

The bill comes amid Hawley’s criticism of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson. Hawley earlier called out Jackson in a series of tweets alleging a long history of siding with those possessing child porn. 

"On the federal bench, Judge Jackson put her troubling views into action. In every single child porn case for which we can find records, Judge Jackson deviated from the federal sentencing guidelines in favor of child porn offenders," Hawley tweeted on March 16.  

He also called out Jackson for using the term "less serious child pornography offender."

"In her time on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, Judge Jackson said she ‘mistakenly assumed that child pornography offenders are pedophiles,' and she wanted ‘to understand this category of non-pedophiles who obtain child pornography,’" Hawley said in another tweet in the same series. 

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Durbin is overseeing Jackson’s confirmation process. Durbin sponsored legislation in 2003, the PROTECT Act, that provided mandatory minimums for those possessing child pornography. Hawley’s bill, blocked by Durbin, was similar to that legislation. It was overturned in 2005 by the U.S. Supreme Court on a 5-4 vote. 

Jackson once gave a man who uploaded several videos of children being raped to the internet only three months in prison for the crime. After being pressed on the issue, Jackson, who overrode a prosecutor's recommendation of two years for the crimes, blamed Congress for not updating the bill. "I understand that Congress wanted the guidelines to be mandatory, the Supreme Court decided in 2005 they couldn’t be," Jackson told Hawley. "And Congress has not come back since then to make them mandatory." 

The PROTECT Act of 2022 would have updated that legislation had it not been blocked by Durbin. The bill notes it is meant to "establish appropriate penalties for possession of child pornography, and for other purposes." It is also known as the ‘‘Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today Act."