Alabama lawmakers may have finally found a levy that tax-averse voters will tolerate: a punishing 50 percent add-on for sales of pornography.

There are many porn-vending businesses in the bastion of social conservatism, and Republican state Rep. Jack J.D. Williams predicts his legislation could bring in as much as $20 million a year, which he sees being used to prevent a federal takeover of overcrowded state prisons.

The state legislature currently is in special session addressing a budget deficit, but Williams says it’s unlikely to pass the bill before next year, as experts explore constitutional concerns. He expects the bill to become law in 2016, but says “it’s a very fluid situation” and may come sooner.

“There seems to be a commitment in this body to do this,” he says of the bill, approved Wednesday by an Alabama House of Representatives committee. “I don’t know of anyone who’s planning to vote against this.”

The new revenue stream is necessary, Williams says, because “all the taxes that have natural growth are in our education budget,” and he believes people will actually pay higher prices for merchandise including magazines, images and films that depict "breast or genital nudity or sexual conduct."

But if the bill does pass as written, it may stoke panic among civil libertarians. Pornography is famously difficult to define and the bill's current definition for material subject to the tax includes books, drawings and audio recordings.

It's unclear how a textbook or a multimillion-dollar painting depicting bare breasts or genitals would be exempt. The bill currently contains no educational or artistic carve-outs, though it does explictly exempt videos rated "R" or "NC-17" by the Motion Picture Association of America.

The American Civil Liberties Union’s Alabama branch is looking into the proposed tax but has yet to come out swinging against it.

Vendors of adult entertainment merchandise in Alabama were reluctant to discuss the bill on Friday. A woman who answered the phone of a Mobile shop hung up after hearing the words “I’m a reporter.” A follow-up call revealed it was no accident. Several other businesses said they won’t be commenting.

A man who said he was the owner of Adult Video Erotica in Huntsville, a large northern Alabama city, but who declined to provide his name, said the new tax wouldn’t matter much.

“I would say it like this, man: If you talk to anyone who owns an adult novelty shop, they will tell you they’ve been taxed out the ass double or triple before any other business,” he says, though there’s currently no statewide excise tax.

“This 50 percent tax is just part of doing business. Yeah, it will probably affect me. Am I worried about it? Not necessarily,” he adds. “Bro, when it comes to this type of business, you never know what you’re going to get.”

The manager of an adult novelty store in the southern part of the state who asked not to be named is less pleased with the development. “Who wants to stand up and protest against a pornography tax?” she says. “They’re hoping the bill will slide right in and pass and I suspect it will.”

There’s precedent in Alabama for such legislative action. The state in 1998 banned sales – but not possession – of sex toys with some exceptions like medical necessity. A federal appeals panel upheld the ban in 2007, forcing shops to creatively rebrand things like vibrators for more general use, such as muscle massages.

The definition of pornography in Williams’ bill makes rebranding pornographic items with an intention to dodge the tax unlikely.

The 50 percent rate was chosen to be midway between sin taxes on beer, wine and tobacco – about 10 percent – and the higher liquor tax rate. Eighty percent of the proceeds would go to the state, with the remainder split between municipal and county governments.

Williams says he has no idea how many pornography vendors are in the state and concedes the state cannot tax pornography purchased online. He says he’s not concerned about businesses joining forces to eject him from office and says constituents appear pleased with his bill.