Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

RFK Jr’s ‘history lesson’ on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine flunks the fact test

Biden back in the battleground state of Wisconsin

In court, Stormy Daniels pulled a Trump on Trump 

A college professor wants to use Section 230 against Big Tech

Commerce Department revokes more export licenses to China’s Huawei

Defense think tank MITRE to build AI supercomputer with Nvidia 

Carolyn Hax: Family pushes siblings to ‘make amends’ after their mother’s death

Miss Manners: I’m offended by a golfer’s skirt choice

Ask Amy: I want to be closer with my brother. He never reaches out to me.

Nats go over .500 the hard way by beating the O’s and Corbin Burnes

These Nationals are pretty fun. They’d be more fun with James Wood.

Baseball can crush rookies. Why hasn’t it crushed Trey Lipscomb?

The next global crisis could come from the sun. We should prepare now.

The FTC’s noncompete clause rule goes too far

The crisis Biden and Trump don’t want to deal with

Serve seared scallops on a creamy herb sauce for a quick, elegant meal

Seared Scallops With Creamy Herb Sauce

From a forgotten Indian cookbook, a deeply flavored chickpea curry

Dog hit by car loses leg, is adopted by firefighter who helped her

Postal worker finds WWII-era letters, drives 5 hours to deliver them

Strangers help Sesame Street puppeteer after heirloom necklace was stolen

Cruise worker charged with stabbing 3 with scissors on ship off Canada

France tries to shed its rude reputation ahead of the Olympics

Don’t be a jerk at the airport: A guide for headphones

How Trump’s allies amplify his Truth Social messages to the wider world

In Arizona, election workers trained with deepfakes to prepare for 2024

The Trump-Biden battle over the 2017 tax cut

That time football legend, rig-driving eligible bachelor Biden was arrested

Arrested U.S. soldier was in Russia to pursue girlfriend

Middle East conflict live updates: WHO says health services in south Gaza will run out of fuel in three days

U.S. signals optimism for Gaza cease-fire as Israel moves into Rafah 

‘Look at the U.S.A.’: A photographer’s reflection on post-9/11 conflict

In photos: The scene after tornadoes struck Michigan and Oklahoma 

Social Security has to be fixed. But you still need your own savings.

An I bond is now at 4.28 percent. Are they still a good deal?

Use these 6 points to say no to a college you and your kid can’t afford

Trump hush money trial live updates: Stormy Daniels testifies

Former U.S. President Donald Trump appears at court in New York

See more coverage in your recommendations

Get the weekly Campaign Moment newsletter

Set alerts for major election developments

Election 2024

The Campaign Moment newsletter

Politics alerts

Robert F. Bukaty

The state of Maine is embarking on a controversial experiment by partially decriminalizing prostitution in an attempt to eliminate exploitation of sex workers — adopting a model advocates say is a first in the country.

Gov. Janet Mills (D) signed a bill into law Monday that will eliminate penalties for those who sell sex while leaving in place laws against the purchase of it.

A former prosecutor and attorney general, Mills vetoed a similar measure in 2021 but approved the bill this year after a conversation with the famed author and feminist Gloria Steinem.

The approach, versions of which have been adopted in Canada and several European countries, is championed by many feminists who see it as the best way to stamp out demand for paid sex while protecting those who sell it because of economic need or because they are victims of trafficking. Among its opponents are conservatives who say it could impede efforts to help trafficking victims; also opposed to the partial decriminalization are those who advocate the full decriminalization of consensual sex work.

Cities and states nationally have been reevaluating how commercial sex should be treated under the law. Last year, <a href="https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/3546490-california-governor-rolls-back-law-criminalizing-loitering-for-the-intent-to-engage-in-sex-work/" target="_blank">California</a> followed New York state in repealing a ban on loitering with the intent to sell sex.

In 2021, then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/nyregion/manhattan-to-stop-prosecuting-prostitution.html#:~:text=546-,Manhattan%20to%20Stop%20Prosecuting%20Prostitution%2C%20Part%20of%20Nationwide%20Shift,justice%20system's%20approach%20to%20prostitution." target="_blank">announced</a> that his office no longer would prosecute other prostitution and unlicensed massage cases but would continue to pursue buyers and traffickers, joining Baltimore and Philadelphia.

But the exchange of sex for money remains illegal for sellers and buyers in the rest of the country, except Nevada, where some rural counties allow the operation of licensed brothels, according to the organization Decriminalize Sex Work, which seeks to change laws nationally.

“The point of this whole thing is to decrease the demand for commercial sex,” said Maine state Rep. Lois Reckitt (D), who sponsored the bill, adding that she wanted to do something to help women in the “revolving door” to get out of the sex industry.

Reckitt said police traditionally have used the women they arrested for prostitution to get to the people trafficking them. “Now they’re going to have to arrest the johns and lean on them to find out where the trafficking is coming from,” she said.

Reckitt, who will retire from the state legislature next year as she reaches her term limit, also sponsored the 2021 measure and said she was “surprised” by Mills’s recent change of heart.

Reckitt said Mills had previously voiced concerns that the bill could lead to an increase in violence and sex trafficking but apparently had been persuaded otherwise. Reckitt added that she thought Mills’s conversation with Steinem played a role.

A spokeswoman for Steinem confirmed she and Mills spoke about the legislation but deferred to the governor to provide details of the conversation.

A spokesman for Mills did not respond to requests for comment.

Tricia Grant, 44, who said she was trafficked into the Maine sex industry at 15 and now works with an anti-trafficking nonprofit organization called Just Love Worldwide, praised the new measure as a way to “stop law enforcement from continuing to arrest and put charges on the people being victimized.” Many who sell sex do so because of force or life circumstances, then struggle to obtain housing or loans because of their criminal records, she said.

“It’s a starting point for the big changes that are going to continue to occur, not only in Maine, but also in our country,” she said.

Another bill to seal the criminal records of women who have been convicted of prostitution is moving through the legislature. Both chambers of Maine’s legislature are controlled by Democrats. Opposition in the state House to the bill, which also upgrades the commercial sexual exploitation of children from a misdemeanor to a felony, came largely from Republicans.

“It has to be an all-or-nothing scenario for the police to be able to do their job,” said Rep. Jennifer Poirier (R), a member of the Maine House Judiciary Committee who opposed the bill.

Another GOP opponent, Rep. Rachel Henderson, said that outlawing the purchase of something but allowing the sale of it made no sense.

Others say they think the law does not go far enough.

Daniella Cameron, the deputy director of the Maine poverty outreach nonprofit group Preble Street, said that she supported the decriminalization of selling sex but that penalizing buyers “pushes the industry further from the margins” and therefore increases the risk of violence toward sellers. She said that truly addressing trafficking would require tackling root causes such as homelessness, poverty, hunger and immigration laws. The legislation carries no new funding.

The partial decriminalization approach — known by advocates as “the Nordic model” because it was first adopted in Sweden — is based on the notion that the exchange of sex for money is almost always exploitative and therefore should be eliminated.

To that end, Reckitt’s bill as originally introduced in March would have changed all references to “prostitution” in Maine’s code to “commercial sexual exploitation.”

“It denigrates all women when some women are being bought and sold,” said Reckitt, a former officer of the National Organization for Women who for three decades led an organization that fights domestic violence in Maine. “There’s no way to have total gender equality in this world if we’re selling women.”

Ariela Moscowitz, the communications director at Decriminalize Sex Work, which favors fully decriminalizing consensual sex work, countered that it is unrealistic to abolish the practice and that feminists who press for “bodily autonomy” in other realms of life should support those who choose to engage in it.

Multiple attempts have been made in other states to change the law around prostitution. Hawaii recently <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/29/maine-prostitution-decriminalization-496874" target=_blank>distinguished</a> between buyers and sellers in law, although buying and selling both remain illegal. Some legislators in <a href="https://www.news10.com/news/ny-capitol-news/ny-bill-would-decriminalize-sex-trade/#:~:text=ALBANY%2C%20N.Y.,would%20give%20power%20to%20abusers." target=_blank>New</a> <a href="https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2021/S6040" target=_blank>York</a> and <a href="https://www.berkshireeagle.com/statehouse/lawmakers-weigh-bills-to-decriminalize-prostitution-in-massachusetts/article_ed8a400c-f4e8-11ed-ab35-c75bd07f602d.html" target=_blank>Massachusetts</a> also have been pushing competing measures that would adopt either the “Nordic model” or full decriminalization. The latter also is under consideration in <a href="https://www.wcax.com/2023/03/16/vt-bill-would-decriminalize-sex-work/" target=_blank>Vermont</a>.

Private Eye Paul Foot Award for Investigative Journalism, 2020

MHP Mischief 30 to Watch Young Journalist, 2021

Criminal Justice Alliance Outstanding Journalism Award, 2022

University of Bristol, BA in politics and French

City, University of London, MA in investigative journalism 

Alexandra Heal is the 2023 Stern-Bryan Fellow at The Washington Post. Previously, she was a reporter on the visual storytelling team at the Financial Times, specializing in deep-dive and investigative visual long reads, and a reporter at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. 

Alexandra Heal

washpost

the-washington-post

Janet Mills

Biden administration

The Fix

The 202s

Polling

Democracy in America

Balance of Power Pair

U.S. House Aggregate

U.S. Senate Aggregate

Politics

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/politics&limit=20

Cut through the 2024 election noise. Get The Campaign Moment newsletter.

Post Politics from The Washington Post is the source for political news headlines, in-depth politics coverage and political opinion, plus breaking news on the biden administration and White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, elections and more.