The Love Ranch, one of the seven legal brothels owned by Nevada Assembly candidate Dennis Hof, lost its brothel license last week.
According to the Nye County Licensing and Liquor Board, Hof failed to apply for renewal and pay fees on time. This is the first time in the board's 10-year history that a brothel license has been permanently revoked.
Hof has been running afoul of county rules a lot, authorities say. In February 2018, the Love Ranch's license was suspended after Hof failed to obtain permission before modifying several mobile homes on site. The brothel was eventually reopened in April.
Hof claimed back in February that this was political retribution for his challenging state Assemblyman James Oscarson in the Republican primary. "They're out of hand. It's the same stuff they're doing to Donald Trump," he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. They're using government power to put me out of business and discredit me."
In 2017, Hof had failed to pay county fees and complete necessary paperwork but was not penalized then.
This past April, citizens of Lyon and Nye counties, both of which contains brothels owned by Hof, drafted ballot referendums to ban brothels in their counties. Voters in Lyon County will see this on their ballots in November, while Nye county voters won't likely see a brothel vote on their ballots until 2020.
Hof argues that such measures won't eliminate prostitution, as crusaders claim, but simply lead to more dangerous working conditions for those involved. "The brothels are a bit like Walmart and church: Nobody forces you to go, but when you need something, you know where they're at," said Hof to the Las Vegas Review. "Live and let live. Don't try to impose your views on other people."
Regardless, Hof has said he plans to sell the brothels in both Lyon and Nye Counties so he can focus on his political aspirations without being trapped by a system that he believes is out to get him. In June, he beat three-time incumbent Oscarson in the GOP primary and will now face Democratic candidate Lesia Romanov in November.
But some women who work at the Love Ranch are optimistic that they will be back in business soon. "Dennis has told us to keep a good attitude," said Sonja Bandolik, an employee at Love Ranch. "He's got deep pockets. If it's humanly possible, he's going to make this happen."
Others have fled to northern Nevada to work at another brothel owned by Hof. And workers at other brothels Hof owns have been coming to his defense on social media.
Nye County commissioners have no issue with putting people out of work- absolutely disgusting. They should be ashamed, taking jobs away as part of a political agenda. Love Ranch closed for now. #sexwork https://t.co/fnrvSx6ckO
— Christina Parreira ?? (@SinCityGrrrl) August 8, 2018
We at alien cathouse stand behind our sisters at love ranch. Leave the brothels alone!
— Brandi_ACH (@AchBrandi) August 13, 2018
In order for Love Ranch to reopen, Hof must file a new brothel application and be approved by the Nye County Licensing and Liquor Board.
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]]>Incoming female students at Harvard University will have one less Greek-Life option now, thanks to the school's recent restrictions on single-sex organizations. The Zeta Phi-Cambridge Area, a chapter of the Delta Gamma organization, has chosen to disband rather than comply with the new rules.
In the spring, Harvard Delta Gamma members had signed a letter ("We Believe Women Should Make their Own Choices") along with two other sororities, Alpha Phi and Kappa Alpha Theta, expressing their plans to continue operating and continue recruitment of female students.
"We realize that including freshman women as members in our organizations is in contravention of the current sanctions Harvard's administration has imposed on single-gender social groups," said the letter. "Yet penalizing our future members for their involvement in a sorority, in reality, denies them access to member-driven education and support systems shown to be effective in battling sexual assault, as well as alcohol abuse, mental health issues, and the particular challenges inherent in college life."
But in May, Delta Gamma national voted to instead shut down its Harvard chapter entirely.
"The decision does not mean that we are succumbing to the university's new sanctions and policies regarding participation in unrecognized single-gender organizations like ours," Wilma Johnson Wilbanks, Delta Gamma president, said in a press release. "We will continue to champion our right to exist on campuses everywhere."
Some former members of Harvard Delta Gamma have formed a new organization called Kali Praxi, a co-ed social organization.
Additionally, Kappa Alpha Theta announced in July that "Harvard's chapter of the all-female sorority Kappa Alpha Theta will become the gender-neutral social group 'Theta Zeta Xi' and will disaffiliate from its national organization in the fall of 2018," according to Harvard student newspaper The Crimson.
Not all affected organizations have been willing to go away without a fight. Numerous all-male organizations have gone to lobby members of Congress to pass the PROSPER Act, a piece of legislation that can pressure universities to avoid penalizing student for joining single-sex organizations or lose federal dollars. In its current state, the bill would not impact current Harvard but students are hoping to convince Congress to add provisions that would impact them.
The Yale Daily News has speculated that if lobbying efforts are unsuccessful then students may pursue a lawsuit.
The post Some Single-Sex Organizations at Harvard Go Quietly While Others Vow to Fight appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>The death penalty is surfacing as a key issue in Louisiana's upcoming gubernatorial election, in 2019. With execution drugs unavailable, the state's top prosecutor is proposing the use of new drugs, nitrogen-induced suffocation, or "hanging, firing squad, or electrocution," if necessary.
Lousiana has not executed anyone since 2010 when Gerald Bordelon was killed by lethal injection after being convicted of the murder of his 12-year old stepdaughter. Since then, the state has amassed over 70 inmates awaiting execution on death row.
The state's lack of access to necessary drugs required for lethal injection remains the largest obstacle to carrying these executions out.
In Lousiana, lethal injection remains the only legal form of execution available. But obtaining execution drugs has become difficult, especially after the drug company Pfizer joined with European drug manufacturers to ban their product from being used for executions.
In 2016, Louisiana requested and was approved for an 18-month extension on the execution of Christopher Sepulvado—convicted for fatally scalding and beating his stepson in 1992—due to not having the necessary execution drugs.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick approved a year-long extension of execution delays after a request was filed by the state.
Defending his administration's request , Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) said in a tweet that Louisiana was limited by a "legitimate problem with accessing drug protocol."
But Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) is not convinced that the problem is legitimate, nor that a solution is really out of reach for Edwards. In a late July letter to the governor, Landry wrote: "If you truly respect the criminal justice system, the rule of law, and the rights of victims-there are a number of initial steps that can be taken".
Landry went on to recommend policy changes that would allow the usage of the drug midazolam, which has survived court challenges despite constant malfunctions. Additionally, he recommended that the state begin using the compounding capabilities of Angola, the prison facility where executions occur, to provide drugs while cooperating with the Department of Corrections "to avoid any pitfalls that may arise or to find other compounding pharmacies".
In 2014, Lousiana Department of Corrections contacted a compounding pharmacy but there remains uncertainty if any products were purchased.
Included with Landry's letter was draft legislation to expand the state's options for execution to include nitrogen hypoxia, an execution form that supposedly renders an inmate unconscious within moments, and eventually suffocates them. He goes on further to say that if that option is unavailable, then the method shall be by "hanging, firing squad, or electrocution, in the discretion of the Secretary of the Department of Corrections."
In an interview with Channel 33 in Baton Rouge, the governor expressed opposition to executions beyond lethal injections. "Hangings and firing squads? No," said Edwards. "I'm not inclined to go back to methods that have been discarded because popular sentiment turned against them, some methods deemed to be barbaric."
A potential candidate for governor in 2019, many speculate that Landry will use this issue to score points with the voters who desire a "tough on crime" candidate. This is one of many issues that Landry and Edwards disagree on and continue to battle with one another over.
Some, like New Orleans Advocate writer James Gill, find Landry's attempt to score political points with such an issue to be disrespectful and poor taste. "Landry wants to bring back hanging, that relic of America's days as a British colony," wrote Gill in his July 28 column.
"With polls showing a majority of voters in favor of capital punishment, Landry evidently thinks being gung-ho for carrying out death sentences will aid his gubernatorial aspirations" and "loses no opportunity to suggest Gov. John Bel Edwards is a wishy-washy liberal" on this issue, Gill continued.
Landry's actions might curry favor with the 58 percent of the Louisiana electorate that favors the death penalty. In May, a bill that would have abolished the death penalty in Louisiana failed to pass the Louisiana House of Representatives and did not make it beyond committee in the Louisiana Senate.
The post Louisiana Attorney General Wants State to Hurry Up on Executions—Even If That Means Using 'Hanging, Firing Squad, or Electrocution' appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>The staff at a public pool in Wilmington, Delaware, recently ejected modestly dressed Muslim children who ran afoul of an unpublicized and possibly nonexistent rule against cotton swimwear.
Kids enrolled in the Darul-Amaanah Academy's Arabic Enrichment Program, a summer day camp, have been using Wilmington's Foster Brown Pool for 4 years. In accordance with their Muslim faith, they wear cotton shorts, shirts, and headscarves. That attire was never an issue until this summer when the city decided to enforce a ban on cotton swimwear without notifying pool visitors of the rule.
"There's nothing that's posted that says you can't swim in cotton," camp director Tasihyn Ismaa'eel told Delaware Online. "If it's a rule, it's never been enforced." At the pool, the only attire that was explicitly banned was "cut-off jeans."
Last week, the pool employees asked Ismaa'eel and her campers to leave, initially citing the swimwear rule before switching rationales and claiming the pool was at full capacity. Pool staff eventually enlisted the help of a police officer who was parked outside. The Independent reports that the officer pressured the campers to leave, claiming that people were "outside waiting" to use the pool.
Naveed Baqir, executive director of the Delaware Council on Global and Muslim Affairs, told Delaware Online such incidents are familiar in his community. Years ago, he faced similar discrimination as he tried to swim in a public pool with his legs covered. "For my own children, I'd rather pay the money and be treated like everyone else rather than putting myself in an anxiety situation," he said. Like Baqir, many Muslims in Wilmington use private pools, such as one in Elkton, Maryland, about 20 miles away.
Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki was at first unsympathetic to the campers, saying everyone should wear "proper swimming attire." Facing pressure from local critics, Purzycki retracted his initial comments. "We should be held accountable for what happened and how poorly we assessed the incident," he said in a statement the following Saturday. "We also referred to vaguely worded pool policies to assess and then justify our poor judgment in reacting to it, and that was wrong."
Ismaa'eel said some of her students come from low-income households and cannot afford religious swimwear made of approved fabrics such as nylon. As a result of the publicity surrounding this incident, Darul-Amaanah Academy has received offers to cover the expense.
The post Muslim Children Ejected From Public Pool for Flouting an Unwritten Swimwear Rule appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>The First Church of Cannabis can't legally use marijuana as a religious sacrament, according to a ruling last week from Indiana judge Sheryl Lynch.
Many in the First Church of Cannabis—a religious organization that sprang from the passage of Indiana's 2015 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)—expected a different outcome. Filing the lawsuit not long after the RFRA passed, church members argued that the state's RFRA should extend the right for them to bypass laws prohibiting marijuana use as some Native American religious groups have been permitted to do.
Nonetheless, many outside the church assumed this lawsuit was stretching the boundaries too far.
"I'm pretty sure the governor of Indiana did not intend to inspire a national freakout when he signed this bill," wrote Reason's Jesse Walker in a 2015 article on the suit. "So in that sense, the law has had unintended consequences. But accidentally creating an easy legal loophole for Hoosier hemp aficionados is not one of them."
Lynch, of Indiana's Marion County Superior Court, defended her decision by suggesting "it would be impossible to combat illicit drug use and trade in piecemeal fashion that allowed for a religious exception that would become ripe for abuse."
Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill applauded the ruling, saying he "appreciate[s] the court's fidelity to both the law and to common sense."
"Indiana's laws against the possession, sale and use of marijuana protect the health, safety and well-being of Hoosiers statewide," Hill's statement continued. "When the state has justifiable and compelling interests at stake, no one can evade the law simply by describing their illegal conduct as an exercise of religious faith."
Bill Levin, a Reform Jew who founded the First Church of Cannabis, expressed plans to appeal the ruling to a higher court.
Levin and his fellow church members aren't the first religious organizations to try to seek the aid of governments to legitimize drug usage. After all, the Clinton-era federal RFRA was written to ensure that peyote was still available for use in Native American ceremonies. This congregation won't be the first or the last. Jacob Sullum's 2007 piece in Reason provides in further insight to this unique area of the law where drugs and faith go hand in hand.
The post Court Says Cannabis Doesn't Count As a Sacrament appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>In late June, members and supporters of Desiree Alliance, a sex work advocacy organization, gathered in the Los Angeles office of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to begin organizing for the legalization of sex work. The event featured nearly a dozen sex workers, including adult actress and Los Angeles-based sex work activist, Siouxsie Q.
Attendees at the meeting drafted a manifesto called the National Sex Worker Anti-Criminalization Principles, which author and escort Maggie McNeill described as a document designed to "provide a working template for a national platform" for sex-worker rights.
In the one-page manifesto, they offer recommendations for both sex workers and those not in the profession. Recommendations include respecting the expertise and experience of sex workers and allowing sex workers to maintain their own health. The manifesto also demands that sex workers be granted certain rights such as choosing their own sexual relationships and guaranteeing full access to social, medical, and justice services without discrimination.
"We're national voices, and we came together with a collective mission to put forth a statement of how we are to be interacted with," said Cris Sardina, director of the Desiree Alliance. "And that was accomplished today."
Sex work advocates hope their manifesto can tackle a host of issues, including concerns about FOSTA/SESTA legislation, which restricts their ability to advertise their services online; building a coalition of former and current sex workers to speak of their experiences; and pushing back against anti-sex work advocates conflating consensual sex work with "sex trafficking."
There are clear parallels between the statement and the Denver Principles, published nearly three decades ago by HIV-positive gay men organizing a response to the AIDS crisis. The Denver Principles offered recommendations such as supporting HIV-positive people in the struggle against firings, evictions, and stigmatization while pushing for privacy rights and equal access to healthcare. Many LGBT scholars and activists cite the Denver Principles as a major blow to the stigmatization of persons with HIV/AIDS.
The post Sex Workers Meet in Los Angeles To Draft Statement of Principles appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Over the past two decades, Mary Jackson has helped countless women, especially women of color, to embrace breastfeeding by promoting its benefits and providing them with valuable techniques. The founder of Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere (ROSE), Jackson is a certified lactation consultant (CLC), one of the two certification options available to those in the business of breastfeeding. She works with women at Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital, and has trained both medical students and doctors around the country on breastfeeding best pactrices.
Yet, under the Georgia Lactation Consultant Practice Act—set to go into law on July 1—Jackson's certification, along with the credentials of over 800 others, will no longer meet state requirements.
Only four states even require a license for professional lactation consulting. Georgia is the only one that will require lactation consultants to have certification from the International Board of Certified Lactation Consultants (IBCLC).
The IBCLC certification is costly and time-consuming, requiring almost two years worth of classes for information that is near useless in application. That's why ROSE is suing the state over its burdensome new occupational licensing requirements, with help from the nonprofit Institute for Justice (IJ).
"Everyday I go to work with a smile on my face because I'm doing something I love—helping moms help their newborns," said Jackson in an interview with IJ. "I don't want to give that up, and I shouldn't have to. I'm passionate about breastfeeding and I do everything I can to make sure moms in minority, rural, and at-risk communities, regardless of their socioeconomic status, have access to quality lactation support from qualified lactation supporters."
"But now, if the courts don't intervene," she continued, "hundreds of my colleagues across the state will be out of a job, unable to continue to help their community, and thousands of moms will be left without the help they need."
Under the new law, there will only be around 400 lactation consultants who meet state requirements to provide their services to new mothers.
ROSE and IJ are now seeking a temporary restraining order to delay the law taking effect. They argue that the new lactation consultant licensing requirements are a violation of the Georgia constitution, which guarantees equal protection and substantive due process. The government cannot license an occupation without there being a "real and substantial" connection between the license and the public good, IJ lawyers note.
Jaime Cavanaugh, the IJ attorney handling this case, put it best when she said: "The state itself concluded in 2013, licensing lactation consultants will only decrease access to breastfeeding support. This law serves no purpose other than to enrich one group of privately certified lactation consultants to the detriment of all others."
The lawsuit was filed on Monday, June 25.
The post 800 Lactation Consultants Could Lose Jobs Under New Georgia Licensing Law appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>The Federal Communications Commission's controversial measure repealing "net neutrality" rules went into effect last week. Supporters of net neutrality have virtually no chance of fighting back on the federal level, but in California, Democratic state legislators are getting creative.
Sen. Scott Wiener (D–San Fran.) introduced Senate Bill 822, which provides statewide net neutrality rules identical to those repealed by the FCC, including prohibitions of any distinctions by internet service providers "on the basis of source, destination, Internet content, application, service, or device." The bill passed the Senate on party lines with Democrats voting in favor and Republicans voting against. It now heads to the California Assembly.
Speaking to the Desert Sun, state Sen. Patricia Bates (R–Laguna Niguel) said of the bill, "Ultimately, all this bill will succeed in doing is opening our state to legal challenges and costly litigation, which we know is coming if the bill is passed." Barnes is probably referring to potential lawsuits from the FCC, which would claim that conflict preemption clauses in the 2015 and 2017 decisions make it unlawful for states to pass their own net neutrality laws.
"An example of this becoming an issue is with Portland," Tom Struble, technology policy manager at the R Street Institute, told Reason. "In 2002, Portland, Oregon tried to reclassify cable as a Title II service instead of a Title I service and the FCC stepped in to prevent this because it came in direct conflict with the Telecommunications Act of 1996."
Meanwhile, Washington state imposed its own net neutrality rules when Gov. Jay Inslee (D) signed Substitute House Bill 2282 into law. That legislation went into effect on the same day as the FCC repeal measure. The fear of an FCC lawsuit seems to be of little concern to lawmakers in the Evergreen State.
On the other hand, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) took a more cautious approach when she signed a bill into law that prohibits government agencies from contracting Internet broadband services from providers who participate in activities not permissible under previous FCC regulations. The goal of that legislation is to impose some degree of net neutrality while avoiding an FCC lawsuit.
This trend is not limited to states in the Pacific northwest. Net neutrality legislation is also pending in Maryland, New Jersey, Vermont, and New York.
Allowing states to write their own net neutrality laws risks creating 50 different regulatory schemes that would come in conflict with one another due to the nature of the Internet.
"Everyone can agree that the federal government needs to be the ones to provide the guidelines on this issue, not 50 different patchwork regulations for each state," says Struble. "These states are well aware of the outcome and are often complicit in wasting millions of dollars of taxpayer resources to prove the point that they're not happy with federal law on this issue."
Net neutrality advocates, such as Fight for the Future, want states to send a message to Washington. The group released the following statement:
This victory in California shows that net neutrality is here to stay. It's time for our Federal lawmakers in the House of Representatives to follow the lead of the US Senate and California State Senate, listen to their constituents, tech experts, and small business owners, and vote for the Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to restore open Internet protections for all.
Speaking to the Cato Institute a few days after the measure went into effect, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai did not specify whether he would pursue legal action against states that passed such legislation, but did state that he was concerned about having too many different regulatory schemes. "It's better to have a single, consistent federal regulatory scheme," he said.
The post California Democrats Want to Bring Back Net Neutrality appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Today, the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) repeal of Obama-era "net neutrality" regulations goes into effect. Critics of the repeal, passed in December, claim that these regulations were necessary to prevent abuse to consumers by big internet service providers such as as Comcast and Verizon.
Proponents of net neutrality quickly mobilized for the overturn of the FCC's repeal, and last month, the U.S. Senate passed a bill that would scrap the FCC's decision and retain net neutrality rules. The measure passed the Senate by a 52-47 margin with Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), John Kennedy (R-La.), and Susan Collins (R-Maine) voting with Democrats to pass the measure.
Activists are hoping for a similar outcome in the House of Representatives, utilizing a process known as the discharge petition to pass the House's version of the Senate's resolution. In most circumstances, a bill does not reach the floor of the House of Representatives until voted out of the committee in which it was assigned. But a discharge petition lets a bill get to the full floor faster by bypassing the committee process.
A discharge petition requires a total of 218 signatures from House members. As of last week, 170 expressed their support.
A statement by the pro net-neutrality group Fight for the Future declared: "June 11th will serve as the kick-off for intense campaigning focused on House lawmakers, who will be under tremendous pressure to support the [net neturality measure] ahead of the midterm elections, given that voters from across the political spectrum overwhelmingly support restoring these rules."
Supporters of the FCC measure, such as Senator John Thune (R-South Dakota), are confident that any effects on the upcoming midterm elections will be minimal. "The fact of the matter is nothing is going to change," Thune told Reuters after the Senate's vote. "I don't know how that animates people to vote if their Netflix is working."
A coalition of pro net-neutrality organizations has named Monday, June 11, as "Neutrality Action Day," and they're encouraging members to spread their messages on social media and contact their local representatives in the House.
Yet in spite of these mobilization efforts, their chances of getting the FCC measure overturned remain slim. Even if the bill passes the House of Representatives, it heads to the White House where chances are nearly impossible that President Trump signs the resolution eliminating the first major act of deregulation of his administration.
The post Activists Attempt Last-Minute Effort to Save Net Neutrality appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>The issue of prostitution decriminalization has divided candidates in the District of Columbia.
In October 2017, David Grosso, an at-large D.C. council member, drafted a decriminalization measure, called the "Reducing Criminalization to Promote Public Safety and Health Act of 2017." The bill would make the District of Columbia the first municipality in the United States to decriminalize prostitution—that is, to remove all criminal penalties for adults consensually selling or paying for sex. (In Nevada, where some counties have legalized prostitution, buying and selling sex is allowed but only under strictly regulated circumstances; those engaging in prostitution outside these circumstances can still be found guilty of a crime.)
As the majority Democratic city prepares to effectively determine its mayor and city council members in the upcoming June 19 primary, discussion surrounding Grosso's legislation has grown. Recently, candidates responded to a questionnaire from the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance (GLAA), a DC LGBT advocacy group, which included a question about the measure.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D), who is seeking re-election, refused to provide a definitive answer about her position. "The issue of commercial sex, sex trafficking, and prostitution in general is highly complicated, generates a lot of responses, and requires careful consideration," said Bowser.
Bowser's Democratic-primary opponents—James Butler and Earnest Johnson—were split in their responses. Butler opposes the legislation, while Johnson supports it.
Overall, only 16 of 26 candidates replied to the questionnaire, including Martin Moulton, the Libertarian Party's candidate for D.C. mayor. Moulton not only supports decriminalization efforts but believes in expunging the records of non-violent sex workers and customers who have previous prostitution convictions.
Ed Lazare (D), a candidate for D.C. Council Chair, also responded in support of Grosso's legislation. "We should not jail people who have turned to sex work," said Lazare, "especially because discrimination and exclusion have prevented many from supporting themselves in the formal economy."
Lazare and Moulton join several other candidates, including Ward 1 council member Anita Bonds (D), in supporting Grosso's decriminalization effort. Lori Parker (D), former DC Superior Court Judge, and two other at-large council candidates oppose the legislation.
"The Council has amended the current law over the years (principally during my chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee 2005-2012) to recognize that sex workers are often the victims of trafficking and establish the penalties for first-time offenders as minor," said DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D), also seeking re-election, in reply to the GLAA questionnaire. Mendelson acknowledged his support for the bill's provision to "establish a task force to improve community safety and health through the lens of commercial sex."
GLAA President, Guillaume Bagal, told the Washington Blade, "I was pleased to see that many were open to sex work law reforms, but still disappointed at the conflation of sex work and trafficking displayed in many responses, and the lack of urgency in addressing the criminalization of individuals doing what they can do to survive."
The World Health Organization, UN Women, Human Rights Watch, and the Open Society Foundations have all publicly supported decriminalizing sex work. Amnesty International has endorsed Grosso's legislation. District voters have an opportunity to take public health and safety for sex workers to the next level. Will they take it?
The post D.C. Candidates Battle Over Decriminalizing Sex Work appeared first on Reason.com.
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