Oregonians won’t get the chance to vote on whether to decriminalize sex work this year after backers of a ballot initiative ended their campaign Thursday.
The proposed initiative would have made it legal to buy and sell sex in Oregon and would have treated sex work like other occupations, subject to employment law and state health and safety standards.
Petitioners were running out of time to gather more than 112,000 signatures from Oregon voters by July 8 to make the ballot, in part because advocates for survivors of human trafficking sued over the language that would have appeared on ballots. Signature-gathering couldn’t start until after the court case was resolved, which could take weeks.
Aaron Boonshoft, a Portland resident who sponsored the ballot initiative, said in a statement to the Capital Chronicle that he’ll continue pushing to decriminalize sex work. That could take the form of another ballot measure in 2024, or legislative action. Before Boonshoft filed his initiative last year, state Rep. Rob Nosse, D-Portland, introduced a bill to decriminalize sex work, but it didn’t make it out of a legislative committee.
“We are committed to sex worker-led decriminalization efforts,” Boonshoft said. “All Oregonians should have access to health, safety and justice. And I believe sex worker rights are at the forefront of what’s needed to create a more just, kind and compassionate world.”
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