AZ: Republican lawmakers send sex trafficking bill to the November ballot for voters to decide
PHOENIX — Ignoring pleas from Democrats that victims could be caught up in harsh sentencing, Republican lawmakers on Monday sent a measure to the November ballot that if passed by voters in November would require those convicted of sex trafficking minors to spend life in prison with no chance of ever being released.
The vote in the Arizona House on an identical measure already passed by the Senate bypasses Democratic governor Katie Hobbs. It joins several other measures already sent to the ballot by Republican lawmakers who hope that voters will back measures Hobbs was likely to veto. Majority Republicans are considering more than a dozen other ballot referrals this session.
The sex trafficking measure did receive some Democratic votes in the Senate but none in the House.
The measure, sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Shawnna Bolick, R-Phoenix, and in the House by Rep. Selena Bliss, R-Prescott, is touted as the Children Are Not For Sale Act.
It’s intent is to ensure that anyone who recruits a girl or boy under the age of 18 into prostitution or profits from their use as a prostitute gets no quarter from the legal system.
https://www.yourvalley.net/stories/republican-lawmakers-send-sex-trafficking-bill-to-the-november-ballot-for-voters-to-decide,485037
