D.C. City Council Craps Out on Sex Work Legalization Vote

WASHINGTON, D.C.—After a contentious 14-hour public hearing that brought out hundreds of supporters and protesters, and generated thousands of emails, the City Council of the District of Columbia has decided not to hold a vote on the "Community Safety and Health Amendment Act of 2019," Bill No. 23-0318, which would have legalized consensual sex work for adults in the District. "We always knew this would be an uphill battle," Independent council member David Grosso, who wrote the bill in collaboration with a coalition of D.C. sex workers, told The Washington Post, which has opposed the bill editorially. "I think it could happen in the future. ... I think we should bring it to the ballot box." Council member Charles Allen, chair of the council committee which heard the voluminous testimony on October 17, made the decision not to bring the bill before the full City Council because, he said, "the proposal probably lacked the support needed to survive a committee vote." And indeed, several council members had expressed early opposition to the measure, with council Chair Phil Mendelson even going so far, according to Grosso, as to stack certain council committees with conservative members whom he expected to vote down or sidetrack progressive legislation such as the decriminalization bill. "He thought we were too left-leaning in our committee," Grosso, who served on the Judiciary Committee last year but was replaced by council member Jack Evans, said of Mendelson. "We need a new makeup of the entire council to really get bills like this through." But Grosso won't be a part of that new council, having announced that he won't be running for reelection in 2020. Grosso originally introduced a decrim bill in 2017, but no hearing was ever held on that bill, so in a sense, the hearing on the 2019 bill represents a step forward. "Truth be told, a year ago, they did not think we would get this bill reintroduced with the amount of support we had," said Tamika Spellman, a former sex worker who serves as the policy and advocacy associate at Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive (HIPS), a nonprofit that advocates for D.C. sex workers. "They definitely didn’t think we would get a hearing. Now, they’re thinking it’s over, and no, it is not. Baby, if anything, you made us dig our heels in." "You know, what we want is to actually heal the community," HIPS member Jessica Martinez told a meeting of sex workers and supporters recently, "which we tried to do in D.C.—which, by the way, Chairman Allen, thank you for not allowing our city to have a vote on a piece of legislation because you thought it was too controversial. If you think it's too controversial to provide people basic human decency and rights, you shouldn't be sitting on that council. And honestly, I know your constituents. I know lots of people in D.C., and the fabulous thing about these sorts of hearings ... is, you get to see who's who and who's for what, and if you are going to cosponsor a piece of legislation and then say it's too controversial to put forth, don't take that seat at the table. "The reason people are here to testify on this piece of legislation," she added, "is because people who are sex workers, people who live in D.C. and care about the people in our communities, the women in our communities, the men in our communities who feel unsafe, who now after SESTA/FOSTA, being someone who used to escort on the internet and then had to move to a more street-based format, these women, these young women are now putting themselves out there in positions where they can find violence and have no way of protecting themselves. The way I see the community banding together, I see ciswomen, trans women, black or white, Latina, Asian, on these strips, walking together, being alongside each other." Opponents of the bill had claimed that the bill would legalize pimping in the District, but in fact, the bill would not change existing laws against coerced prostitution, and would actually give sex workers more protection by allowing them to report violence against them to the police without fear of being arrested for their profession. The sex workers who turned out in support of the bill were adamant that such protections are needed, since several sex workers had been found murdered over the summer in the District. But the bill to decriminalize sex work is dead for this year, and it's unclear when another such bill might be introduced, or by whom.