A Democratic congressman is calling for the U.S. to decriminalize sex work nationwide in response to damning findings released by the House Ethics Committee about Matt Gaetz.
Shri Thanedar of Illinois wrote in a Twitter post on Thursday that sex workers should be able to come to law enforcement when they are victims of abuse, adding that decriminalizing sex work would aid in efforts to prevent children from being trafficked and otherwise exploited.
“We should decriminalize sex work to maximize sex workers’ legal protection and their ability to exercise other rights, including unionization, justice, and health care. Decriminalization and regulation would prevent trafficking and exploitation of minors,” wrote Thanedar.
The congressman added in a second post: “It also helps them report crimes against them.”
It also helps them report crimes against them.
— Shri Thanedar (@ShriThanedar) December 26, 2024
Sex work is legal in just one state in the U.S.: Nevada. It is heavily regulated, and a 2023 count reported that less than two dozen businesses were operating statewide.
Thanedar’s comments came in response to an allegation from the House Ethics Committee that Gaetz likely violated Florida’s statutory rape law during his time as a congressman and “regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him” from 2017 to 2020. The committee spoke to one woman who said she had sex with Gaetz when she was 17 and was paid $400, “which she understood to be payment for sex.”
Gaetz strongly denied the accusations and pointed to the Department of Justice’s decision not to bring charges against him as evidence of his innocence. The House voted to release the report on Gaetz in early December, after the ex-congressman resigned from Congress and then withdrew his bid for attorney general amid sexual misconduct allegations.
That bid to lead the agency which once investigated him failed as it became clear that several Republican senators, in addition to the chamber’s Democrats, were unmovable in their opposition to his nomination.
Gaetz is now headed to Trump-friendly cable network One America News and openly hinting about running for governor in 2026. But the rabble-rousing Trump loyalist has few close allies beyond the former president himself, and is expected to face strong opposition for the role if he runs.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy predicted to The Independent at the 2024 Republican convention in Milwaukee (where he and Gaetz had a confrontation on the event floor) that the allegations being investigated by the Ethics committee would specifically sink Gaetz’s bid for governor. The two men loathe each other, in particular after the Florida congressman led a successful bid to oust McCarthy from the speakership in 2023.
