- E.S.
- State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles
Having sailed out of the state legislature with unanimous "yea" votes in both houses, a bill to combat child prostitution on sites like Backpage.com now goes to the governor for her signature—and then, bill sponsor Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-36) expects, swiftly into the courts.
"I think it’s likely Village Voice Media [owners of Backpage.com and The Seattle Weekly] will file suit indicating the bill violates the federal Communications Decency Act," Kohl-Welles tells me. "But we worked very closely with and were able to satisfy Allied Daily Newspapers of Washington and the ACLU, which I think says a lot about our carefully crafted language."
That language, according to Kohl-Welles' office, "would create a new offense, making it illegal to knowingly sell an escort ad that involves a minor. To avoid possible criminal charges, classified advertising companies would be motivated to try to verify ages of escorts in sex-related postings. The bill offers an affirmative defense in prosecution of advertising commercial sexual abuse of a minor if documentation is provided of the advertisers having obtained in-person age verification."
In other words: If Backpage and the Weekly do what Mayor Mike McGinn, Attorney General Rob McKenna, Council Member Tim Burgess, and many others have been demanding—in-person age verification for those placing and appearing in escort ads—then they will be able to avoid charges for the new Class C felony this bill creates.
The Weekly has not yet responded to a request for comment on the bill's passage.
As for the potential lawsuit, both Kohl-Welles and McKenna have admitted before (here and here) that there are potential constitutional hurdles to trying to regulate this kind of advertising-related speech.
But Kohl-Welles appears confident that this bill can withstand a court challenge.
"This bill passes constitutional muster as well as the federal Communications Decency Act," she says. "If the bill is signed into law, it will be the first one of its kind in the country.”
