Cite as: 513 U. S. 64 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
§ 2251(c) and argue that § 2252 ought to be read like § 2251. But this argument depends on the conclusion that § 2252(c) does not include a knowing requirement, a premise that respondents fail to support. Respondents offer in support of their premise only the legislative history discussing an intent to exclude a scienter requirement from § 2251(a). Because §§ 2251(a) and 2251(c) were passed at different times and contain different wording, the intent to exclude scienter from § 2251(a) does not imply an intent to exclude scienter from § 2251(c).6
The legislative history can be summarized by saying that it persuasively indicates that Congress intended that the term "knowingly" apply to the requirement that the depiction be of sexually explicit conduct; it is a good deal less clear from the Committee Reports and floor debates that Congress intended that the requirement extend also to the age of the performers. But, turning once again to the statute itself, if the term "knowingly" applies to the sexually explicit conduct depicted, it is emancipated from merely modifying the verbs in subsections (1) and (2). And as a matter of grammar it is
6 Congress amended § 2251 to insert subsection (c) in 1986. Pub. L. 99- 628, 100 Stat. 3510. That provision created new offenses relating to the advertising of the availability of child pornography or soliciting children to participate in such depictions. The legislative history of § 2251(c) does address the scienter requirement: "The government must prove that the defendant knew the character of the visual depictions as depicting a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct, but need not prove that the defendant actually knew the person depicted was in fact under 18 years of age or that the depictions violated Federal law." H. R. Rep. No. 99-910, p. 6 (1986). It may be argued that since the House Committee Report rejects any requirement of scienter as to the age of minority for § 2251(c), the House Committee thought that there was no such requirement in § 2252. But the views of one Congress as to the meaning of an Act passed by an earlier Congress are not ordinarily of great weight, United States v. Clark, 445 U. S. 23, 33, n. 9 (1980), citing United States v. Southwestern Cable Co., 392 U. S. 157, 170 (1968), and the views of the committee of one House of another Congress are of even less weight, Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U. S. 552, 566 (1988).
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