Get It Done, Mr. Speaker
Maybe Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie is just playing his cards close to his chest and working for a compromise on the long-stalled child-sex-trafficking bill without giving any public sign of it.
Thing is, time’s running out: The legislative session is scheduled to end by June 20, and word is that it may finish even sooner.
Which is fine — lawmakers get their jobs done. But victim advocates and prosecutors both want the End Child Trafficking Act passed. It would bring New York into line with federal laws that define anyone who pimps out minors as a sex trafficker, because kids can’t legally consent to prostituting themselves to adults.
Yet Heastie’s Assembly has been blocking the reform for And now the speaker will only tell The Post that he’s still worried the bill’s broad language could ensnare innocents: “We just would really like the bill to go at those people who are intentionally, knowingly, willingly profiting or supporting the trafficking of young girls.”
But how hard can it be to find language so the law won’t be used against women who are themselves trafficking victims?
To be fair, we hear that negotiations toward a compromise are indeed showing promise. But they need to finish before the clock runs out.
And it’s all on Heastie to see that they do.