A History of Harris Positions on Sex Work
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris won’t say if she supports the decriminalization of prostitution, per Axios. I don’t think there’s much mystery here—Harris has a long history of being antagonistic toward sex workers and anything that enables sex work. But asked during her 2019 presidential bid whether sex work should be decriminalized, Harris said: “I think so, I do.”
Harris’ seeming flip-flop on sex work is what led Axios‘ Alex Thompson to try pinning down her current position. “It’s among several progressive stances Harris has either abandoned or gone silent on as she’s moved toward the center in her abbreviated race for the White House,” he writes.
The truth, however, is that Harris has never really supported decriminalizing prostitution. Even when you look at her full statements about the matter from 2019, it’s clear that she still favored punishing prostitution customers. She had just adopted a “Nordic model” stance, in which sex workers are treated as victims (and thus able to avoid arrest for selling sex alone) but anyone who offers to pay them is still criminally culpable.
For today’s newsletter, let’s take a look back at some of Harris’ historic statements and actions related to sex work.
May–June 2004: With Harris as district attorney, San Francisco cops start cracking down on prostitution at strip clubs by stepping up raids, undercover operations, and arrests. (“The attention is a departure from former District Attorney Terence Hallinan,” noted The San Francisco Examiner.) District Attorney Harris “is worried about the exploitation of women—that is a top concern of hers,” a spokesperson told The Examiner in May. “She wants to make sure she talks to the dancers and has a full understanding of their concerns, but also wants to see that no laws are broken.” Harris eventually declined to bring charges against arrested dancers, saying her office was developing a more “coordinated and comprehensive approach” and convening a working group to look into “potential violations of municipal, building, and penal codes” by the clubs.
January 2005: Harris said she “support[ed] and agree[d] with the spirit” of legislation to impound the cars of people convinced of soliciting prostitution, since it was about holding “accountable the true perpetrators of prostitution—the Johns, the pimps and the traffickers.” (“John” is an old-timey slang for sex work clients that cops still love to use.)
2007–2009: Harris and Gavin Newsom, then San Francisco mayor, team up to shut down massage parlors where prostitution takes place. The crackdown led to shutting down”36 massage parlors that were fronts for prostitution” in the last three years, Newsom told the Associated Press in January 2010.
2008: Harris panned a San Francisco ballot initiative (Proposition K) that would have decriminalized prostitution and directed for policing prostitution into public health services instead. “I think it’s completely ridiculous, just in case there’s any ambiguity about my position,” Harris, then district attorney of San Francisco, said. “It would put a welcome mat out for pimps and prostitutes to come on into San Francisco.” While sex worker rights advocates like Carol Leigh were pushing Proposition K as a matter of protecting the safety of women in sex work, Harris complained that prostitution “compromises the quality of life in a community.”
2012: Harris started targeting the online classified ad platform Backpage over its section that allows ads for escorts, strippers, and other types of “adult” work. “Backpage.com needs to shut itself down,” said then-Attorney General of California Harris, calling its business model “the profiting off of selling human beings and the purchase of human beings.”
May 2015: A federal lawsuit filed by the Erotic Service Provider Legal, Educational and Research Project (ESPLERP) sought to decriminalize prostitution in California. “ESPLERP’s suit argues that California’s prostitution statute violates both our right to privacy and our freedom of speech,” LA Weekly reported at the time. Harris’ office filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing that criminalizing prostitution was necessary
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