PORN STARS AT THE CAPITOL

Sin Tax Protest
Approximately 30 adult entertainment stars will be giving a live performance in Sacramento on Monday April 23rd – no bumps and grinds, but plenty of soundbites from a press conference on the west steps of the State Capitol.

The stars include Mary Carey, who ran for Governor in California’s recall election in 2003.

Free Speech Coalition
But the issue this time is the so-called “Sin Tax” that would place an additional fee on live adult entertainers, along with adult toy stores and “gentlemen’s clubs” according to lobbyist Matt Gray, who is representing the group at the Capitol.

The “Free Speech Coalition” will be actively lobbying legislators at the Capitol on issues of concern to the adult entertainment industry. At the top of the agenda is AB 1551 by Charles Calderon (D) , Whittier Assemblyman, author of the controversial measure.

Gray says the Free Speech Coalition plans to hold private meetings with Calderon. The group says the adult entertainment industry grosses $3 to $4 billion dollars annually in California.

CLONED FOODS

SEEING DOUBLE
Senator Carole Migden (D) San Francisco says consumers should know if they are drinking milk from a cloned cow or feeding their kids cloned lamb chops. So she has authored a bill that requires the clear labeling of food products from cloned animals. Migden says the U.S. Food and Drug Administration may allow the introduction of cloned foods as early as next month.

“Polls show Americans want to know if they are eating artificial food,” Migden told me in a telephone interview. “This bill just lets the public know what’s contained in food for human consumption.”

Migden will be holding a Capitol news conference on Wednesday morning to drum up support for her bill, which faces its first test before the Senate Health Committee later that day.