Harris won't say if she still backs decriminalizing prostitution

Vice President Harris' campaign is declining to say whether she still supports decriminalizing sex work — a position she took while running for president in 2019.

Why it matters: It's among several progressive stances Harris has either abandoned or gone silent on as she's moved toward the center in her abbreviated race for the White House.

Driving the news: In February 2019, The Root asked Harris whether she thought "sex work ought to be decriminalized." She responded: "I think so, I do."

• "When you're talking about consenting adults, I think that, yes, we should really consider that we can't criminalize consensual behavior as long as no one is being harmed," she said.
• Harris added that people in sex work who hurt "another human being, or profits off of their exploitation" should be criminally prosecuted.
• Harris also told The Root that when she was the district attorney for San Francisco, "I was advocating then that we need to stop arresting these prostitutes and instead go after the Johns and the pimps, because we were criminalizing the women."

Yes, but: Harris has been inconsistent on the issue.

• In 2008 — more than a decade before she first ran for president — Harris opposed a San Francisco ballot initiative to decriminalize prostitution.
• "I think it's completely ridiculous, just in case there's any ambiguity about my position," she told the New York Times in 2008. "…It would put a welcome mat out for pimps and prostitutes to come on into San Francisco."

What they're saying: The vice president's campaign did not respond to Axios when asked about her current position on sex work and whether it was closer to her 2008 or 2019 stance.

• The campaign declined to make her available for a brief interview. She has done a historically small number of interviews for a presidential candidate.

Zoom out: During the past decade, many Democrats and progressives have been pushing to decriminalize prostitution in an effort to protect sex workers.

• Such moves would reduce criminal penalties — but not technically make it legal, either.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is among the progressives who has called for sex work to be decriminalized.

• The American Civil Liberties Union argued in 2023 that the "criminalization of sex work makes sex workers more vulnerable to violence on the job and less likely to report violence."
• In 2023, Maine eliminated penalties for people who sell sex while keeping them in place for people who buy it.
• In 2019, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) proposed a resolution calling for all states to removed criminal and civil penalties for sex workers.
• "Sex work is work," Pressley said. "In fact, sex work is often the only form of work for certain marginalized communities who are most vulnerable to housing and employment discrimination."

Between the lines: Harris has been reluctant to talk about some of the liberal positions she took during the 2020 Democratic primary.

• She has aggressively moved to the center on immigration, health care, and other issues since she declared her candidacy in July, after President Biden's abrupt withdrawal.
• Harris or her aides have said she's changed positions on issues such as banning fracking and Medicare For All — she says she now opposes both — and the border wall, which she previously opposed but now backs as part of a bipartisan border security bill.