Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the internet, KOSA rears its ugly head once again.
The rumors of KOSA’s demise in Congress may have been overstated. Following a big push by supporters of the bill, including Senator Marsha “we need this to protect kids from the transgender in our culture” Blackburn, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, has announced that she’ll hold a markup of it and 15 other bills on Wednesday of this week.
This does not mean that KOSA is really going to get a vote. Lots of things could happen. But it does mean that KOSA (and COPPA 2.0, which the Senate combined into KOSPA — the Kids Online Safety & Privacy Act) are getting a bit of new life.
It’s possible the markup will be delayed or won’t actually happen. Markups get announced and delayed and sometimes shelved entirely. And what happens at the markup may matter. Markups are when other committee members can offer up amendments, and it gives everyone a sense of what people feel about a bill. It’s possible that amendments could change KOSA quite a bit, though the fundamental problems of the bill are unfixable.
I’ve also heard that House GOP leadership is still not a fan of the bill. So, even if it goes through a markup and passes out of committee, that doesn’t mean that House Speaker Mike Johnson would agree to bring it to the floor.
Since the House bill is still significantly different from the Senate version that passed, even if the bill went to the floor and passed, there would still need to be a reconciliation between both versions and another vote.
In short, there are still plenty of reasons why KOSA might not become law. But, the fact that the markup has been announced suggests that it could move forward and is not totally dead.
If you have a Representative who is on the Energy & Commerce Committee, you might want to call your Representative and point out the many, many problems with the bill. If your Rep is a Republican, I’d recommend Rand Paul’s thoughtful exploration of the problems with the bill. If your Rep is a Democrat, then just highlight how hard the Heritage Foundation is pushing for the bill, and how it sees it as part of its Project 2025 goals to have more power to stop speech it dislikes on the internet.
