Child Predators Accountability Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I am rising in strong support of H.R. 6715, the Child Predators Accountability Act of 2025.

Mr. Speaker, the decision that the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina references out of the Seventh Circuit, United States v. Howard, threatens to significantly limit prosecutors' ability to hold some of the worst child predators to account legally. The question may appear to be technical, but the human consequences are grave and brutally simple.

Title 18 of the United States Code, section 2251(a), criminalizes the production of child sex abuse material. For decades, prosecutors have used the law to target predators who prey on children or who produce ghastly images of child sex abuse, but the Seventh Circuit's ruling in the Howard case in 2020 jeopardized prosecutors' ability to go after these dangerous people until they actually abuse the child and create an image of the abuse.

The Howard decision narrowed the scope of section 2251(a), holding that the mere physical presence of the minor in a visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct does not automatically violate the statute. To obtain a conviction for production of CSAM in the Seventh Circuit, the child in the photo, video, or image must themselves be engaged in the explicit conduct.

This is an absurd reading that we can and must legislatively resolve. The Howard ruling undermines the ability to prosecute common scenarios involving the surreptitious recording of kids; for example, when criminals plant concealed cameras in bathrooms, locker rooms, and bedrooms to record sexually explicit images of children who are unaware that they are even being filmed.

Criminals who record themselves sexually violating very young children, such as infants and toddlers, who are too young to understand that they are being filmed in sexually explicit scenarios could also conceivably avoid prosecution under the pinched reasoning of the Howard decision.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 6715 would make clear that even the passive use of a child in the production of child sex abuse materials is a crime, and it will eliminate any confusion caused by the Seventh Circuit's ruling in Howard.

Mr. HARRIS of North Carolina.

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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, in closing, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, we seem to have the bipartisan convergence that we need to reverse the error of the interpretation that is in the Howard decision to make sure we can always hold accountable the perpetrators of this seriously corrosive crime.

H.R. 6715 strives to right this wrong, and I am proud that we are acting in a bipartisan way to do that. I urge my colleagues to support the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HARRIS of North Carolina.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the members of the Committee on the Judiciary for unanimously supporting this bill in markup. I am grateful for my colleagues who have all risen to speak today and to the ranking member and leadership on the other side that have worked together with us.

Mr. Speaker, I urge swift passage of my legislation, the Child Predators Accountability Act, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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