California’s Protect Our Games Act Fails Senate Vote, But “Next Time We Will Be Ready”
The Stop Killing Games movement just got hit with a loss, as the Protect Our Games Act fails a Senate vote.
The act, which was proposed by California Assemblyman Chris Ward, was put to a vote last month, where it won with 43-16. The next step was getting sent to the State Senate. Though in a Reddit post, it was confirmed that the bill lost. “The vote was 4 yes, 3 no, with the rest abstaining.”
“Those abstentions matter. In a committee vote, an abstention is not neutral. It has the same practical effect as a no, because a bill only advances if it gets a majority of yes votes. Not enough yeses means the bill stops here for this session. That is the loss.”
However, there is some positive to the post, as the campaign volunteer said that they attempted to pass the bill without any funding or lobbying, saying that “this was our first attempt, in our first year, in the United States, with a US budget of zero dollars.”
“We never expected to get this far,” the post said. “We ran this on volunteers, emails, phone calls, and the truth.”
While the loss was disappointing, the volunteer wrote passionately about the next try, saying, “They are going to have to work a lot harder next time, because next time we will be ready.”
They go on and accuse the Entertainment Software Association of lobbying senators with “claims that ranged from misleading to flatly false,” saying that running a private server, like in Minecraft, would be illegal.
“We’re not stopping. Not even close. Next session, we come back with an in-person lobbying presence, the funding to do this properly, and a long list of organizations and developers signed on in support.”
Make sure to head to the Reddit post to watch the short video, with the original poster saying that the full video should be up on the California State Senate’s website sometime this week.
