As he soft-launches a 2028 presidential campaign, California’s Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom (D) is coming under scrutiny for fostering the rise of open prostitution in his state, including the trafficking of children.
The liberal New York Times shone a light on the growing problem in a recent article that focuses on one notorious street in Los Angeles where girls as young as 11 and 13 stalk the sidewalks in lingerie.
“For the 77th Street Division, which covers the northern half of the Figueroa Corridor, prostitution had always been a problem,” the Times noted.
“But in recent years, the officers had seen the magnitude of child sex trafficking explode.
“With a dozen girls, one trafficker could easily make $12,000 a night,” the article says.
Police in Los Angeles have felt powerless to stop this plague from spreading, thanks to the leftist policies of local and state politicians, including Newsom.
While the Times fails to mention Newsom’s role in the trafficking epidemic, the newspaper does mention SB357.
The bill was introduced by far-left Democrat state Senator Scott Wiener and signed into law by Newsom in 2022.
Wiener is now challenging Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for her seat in Congress.
Like most soft-on-crime reforms, SB357 was conceived as a response to imaginary social ills, such as a lack of “dignity” accorded to prostitutes and supposedly rampant discrimination in policing.
But the law, which bars police from arresting anyone loitering for prostitution, has had the predictable impact of fueling the demand for illicit sex.
“The repeal, known as SB 357, was intended to prevent profiling of black, brown, and trans women based on how they dressed,” the Times reports.
“But when it was implemented in January 2023, the effect was that uniformed officers could no longer apprehend groups of girls in lingerie on Figueroa, hoping to recover minors among them.
“Now officers needed to be willing to swear they had reason to suspect each girl was underage — but with fake eyelashes and wigs, it was nearly impossible to tell.”
At the time SB357 became law, Newsom downplayed the change, saying it would target “disproportionate harassment of women” and transgenders without legalizing prostitution.
While the law did not legalize prostitution, it was a massive boon for pimps, and without adequate policing, prostitution might as well be legal in places like Figueroa Street.
The Times obliquely notes the impact of the “defund the police” movement, which led to police in Los Angeles disbanding a special unit for combating trafficking.
“As trafficking grew, the means to deal with it shrank,” the Times reported.
“In 2021, the Police Department’s central human-trafficking unit was disbanded following budget cuts, leaving each division fewer resources to tackle the problem.”
In July, Newsom signed a law making it a felony to purchase sex from minors and making it a misdemeanor to loiter for the purpose of purchasing sex.
Newsom opposed members of his own party who fought the part of the law that makes it an automatic felony to buy sex from 16- and 17-year-olds.
While the new law is a step in the right direction, open prostitution is still thriving in California after years of lax enforcement.
It is still illegal for police to arrest prostitutes for loitering.
We can expect this issue to come up more as Newsom chases the White House.
The American people will expect Newsom to answer for this.
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