SESTA going to a vote

TODAY! Is the last day to call your Senator about FOSTA/SESTA. Here’s why:

• Monday afternoon the bill went to the Senate floor for debate. At 5:30 A motion to invoke cloture passed with two no votes (Sen. Wyden and Sen. Rand Paul). This is a vote to end the debate, and bypass the hold that had been placed on the bill a few months ago.
• From the Senate Democrats website, under the section “The Floor”: On Wednesday, March 21, at a time to be determined, the Senate will proceed to the consideration of H.R.1865, SESTA/FOSTA. The only amendments in order are Wyden amendment #2122 and Wyden amendment #2213. There will be up to 4 hours of debate concurrently on the amendments and that following the use or yielding back of time, the Senate will vote in relation to the amendments in the order listed, with a 60 vote threshold required for adoption of each amendment. Upon disposition of the amendments, the Senate will vote on passage of the bill, as amended, if amended. 
• Because calls are taken by staff and only reported out at the end of the day, calls placed the day of debate by constituents won’t be reported until after the vote. SO! Today is the last day to Call your Senator and vote NO! on H.R. 1865.

What’s Next?

On Thursday, at 7:30pm EST and Sunday 4pm EST we’ll be holding community debrief calls to discuss (1) what happened with this bill, including the organizational and staffer conversations (2) What this means for next steps about making sex workers’ voices heard and how to stay involved (3) Where we are on pulling together as much safety information as possible (4) Try and answer the questions we can at this point which have come in. There are a lot of questions about safety, and while we won’t be giving step by step tips on harm reduction or taking questions on these calls verbally, we can answer some of the most common ones. If you’d like to join please RSVP here so we can get you the call-in information.

**Also, we recognize that there is a level of privilege that is making this work accessible. We are actively thinking through some of the different ways to address that, especially around language. If folks have ideas, critiques, or things that would make it easier to engage, please please let us know on the contact page. Every voice is important and every experience deserves to be heard.