In 2023, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law requiring pornographic websites to both verify the age of users and provide them with health warnings.

Although the legislation was initially struck down on First Amendment grounds, Texas' attorney general is confident that the Supreme Court will uphold it. 

State attorney general is "very optimistic"

That's according to Fox News, which spoke with Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton last week after he made arguments before America's highest judicial body.

"Hearing the questions and seeing the comments by the justices I feel very optimistic, I think we’re going to win this," Paxton was quoted as saying.

"I really feel good about it. I think most of the justices are going to come down on the right side," the state attorney general stressed.

"Even the other side making their arguments admitted that we have an interest in protecting minors," Paxton said in reference to a collection of porn sites known as the Free Speech Coalition.

"They just said that the way we were doing that was some type of overburden on adults, and so they offered up other suggestions, those suggestions don’t actually work and that’s probably why they offered them up, they don’t want age verification because it actually works, and it affects their bottom line," he added.

Case hinges on standard of review

Fox News noted how the Supreme Court must determine whether Texas's law should be judged on "rational basis" or "strict scrutiny" standard of review.

Under the strict scrutiny standard, a state must demonstrate that its law was both "narrowly tailored" and the "least restrictive means available in order to achieve a "compelling government interest."

Meanwhile, the rational basis standard simply requires that a must serve a "legitimate interest" and be rationally connected to fulfilling that interest.

For his part, Paxton told Fox News that he is a "huge free speech advocate" and believes there should be "very few limitations on free speech."

Paxton: "We need to protect children"

"However, we have recognized that we need to protect children in all kinds of different ways," the state attorney general went on to insist.

"We don’t let them sign contracts, we don’t let them get married until they’re 18, we don’t let them be served alcohol, we don’t let them get tobacco, we have protected children, it’s been [throughout] our entire history," Paxton pointed out.

"If you look anywhere in the developed world or anywhere [else], children are protected," he noted. "It’s my job to enforce Texas law. In this case I feel very comfortable protecting our children from having this put in front of them."