The State - News from March 21, 1986

A bill to encourage more prosecution of pornographers by broadening the definition of obscenity cleared the Assembly on a 60-2 vote after Assemblywoman Marian W. LaFollette (R-Woodland Hills) declared that California has become “the pornography capital of the world.” The measure, sent to the Senate for approval of Assembly amendments, would change a decades-old obscenity standard that requires materials to be “utterly without redeeming social importance” before they can be outlawed. The proposed new standard would outlaw materials that lack “significant literary, artistic, political, educational or scientific value.” Assemblyman Richard Floyd (D-Lawndale), who cast one of the dissenting votes, said he feared that pornographers would avoid prosecution by casting their materials as educational sex manuals.