Advocacy

This week, ABA CEO Oren Teicher thanked Rep. William Delahunt for introducing the Main Street Fairness Act, and he encouraged booksellers nationwide to write to their legislators to express support for the bill.

On Tuesday, July 13, a coalition including the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, Harvard Book Store, and Porter Square Books filed suit to block a broad Massachusetts censorship law that bans constitutionally protected speech on the Internet.

Rep. William Delahunt has introduced the Main Street Fairness Act, which would authorize the 24 states that are part of the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement to require remote retailers to collect and remit sales tax on orders in their states.

ABA is asking member booksellers in the states that collect sales tax but that do not currently have e-fairness laws to urge both gubernatorial and state legislative candidates to make sales tax fairness a part of their agenda.

The Campaign for Reader Privacy (CRP) and other civil liberties advocates were heartened to learn last week that U.S. Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine has agreed to a request from Senate Judiciary Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to conduct a new investigation regarding how the government is using USA Patriot Act domestic surveillance powers.

After Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL) announced that an agreement had been reached among Senate and House leaders that regulations on swipe fees would remain in proposed financial reform legislation, bankers began bombarding Congress in opposition. 

A wide array of associations, led by ABA, will begin reaching out this week to gubernatorial candidates about the need for sales tax fairness. ABA is asking its member booksellers in the states that collect sales tax but that do not currently have e-fairness laws to help with the effort.

This week, ABA joined with more than 200 national and state organizations representing a diverse array of small businesses to urge the U.S. House of Representatives to support an amendment to regulate swipe fees charged by banks for debit-card transactions.

According to North Carolina Department of Revenue (NCDOR) Secretary Kenneth R. Lay, his department has no interest in obtaining, nor did it ask for, title-specific book data from Amazon.com in the state's efforts to enforce its use tax laws.

Two insightful, forceful, and persuasive advocates defended opposing sides of a nuanced and important free speech issue at a BEA debate sponsored by the American Booksellers Association for Free Expression, the Association of American Publishers’ Freedom to Read Committee, and the Freedom to Read Foundation. 

ABA's Day of Education session "Power to the Bookseller" featured ABA CEO Oren Teicher and Jim Sherin, president and CEO of the Retail Council of New York.

This week, the final state-specific fact sheets were added to the E-Fairness Action Kit (E-FACT) on BookWeb.org.  E-FACT provides booksellers with a wide array of tools for their e-fairness outreach efforts.

Jim Sherin, president and CEO of the Retail Council of New York, provides a preview of the lessons from New York's e-fairness victory, as well as tips on lobbying lawmakers, which he will share at  "Power to the Bookseller" at ABA's Day of Education.

A Connecticut bill that would have required remote retailers that had online affiliates in the state acting as sales agents to collect and remit sales tax was tabled as the legislative session ended on Thursday, May 6. Though the bill, HB 5481, passed the Finance Committee with strong support, lawmakers backed away from the bill after Amazon.com threatened to fire its Connecticut affiliates if the bill was signed into law.

Following media coverage of Amazon.com's legal challenge to North Carolina's attempts to collect sales tax for online sales, a New York Times editorial characterized the retail giant's federal court action as a "losing battle to defend its longstanding practice of not collecting sales taxes in most states where it does business."