A GOP lawmaker is warning that a San Francisco official's push to legalize prostitution in the city's Mission District will hamper police efforts to arrest sex traffickers.
San Francisco County Supervisor Hillary Ronen supports creation of a red-light zone in the neighborhood, where prostitution is prevalent, to decriminalize sex work. Ronen was expected to introduce the resolution Tuesday, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The move is opposed by GOP state Assemblyman James Gallagher.
"What sane person would argue that the solution to human trafficking is to make it easier?" said Gallagher, the Washington Examiner reported.
"We need to identify traffickers, arrest them, and put them behind bars for a long time, but under California law, human trafficking isn't considered a violent crime, so traffickers are able to benefit from early release programs."
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, in July 2022 signed a state bill repealing an older law designed to crack down on people loitering for sex work.
According to the Washington Examiner, there has since been a spike in the sex hustling, enough to even prompt a street closure.
California state Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat, one of the bill's authors, said the measure was meant to combat arrests based on how people look, not if someone is committing a crime.
"The police's hands are not tied," Wiener has reportedly said. "They can arrest people for soliciting, they can cite vehicles that are stopped in the middle of the street, they can arrest 'johns,' they can arrest pimps."
On National Human Trafficking Awareness Day on Jan. 11, California GOP Assemblyman Joe Patterson introduced a bill making sex trafficking a violent felony under the state's three-strikes law.
"Everything wrong about California criminal law is laid out in our statutes pertaining to human trafficking — currently, trafficking children for sexual purposes is not considered a violent felony," he said.
Gallagher told the Washington Examiner he supports the Patterson bill, insisting teenage girls will continue to suffer in San Francisco and elsewhere because Democrats have a "pro-criminal agenda."
"Limiting police's ability to investigate prostitution took away an important tool to go after pimps, and the suffering that's playing out on the streets is the predictable result," Gallagher said.
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