Overview
- Senate Bill 97 would repeal state crimes for consensual commercial sex among adults, including prostitution, soliciting, patronizing, and keeping a place of prostitution.
- The proposal would preempt local prohibitions, preventing municipalities from using home‑rule authority to maintain or enact bans.
- Safeguards remain in place: paying for sex with minors stays illegal, human‑trafficking statutes are unchanged, and felony pimping and coercive pandering would still be prosecuted.
- The measure has been assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee with no hearing scheduled, and Gov. Jared Polis has not taken a public position; if enacted, it would take effect immediately.
- Lead sponsors are Sen. Nick Hinrichsen, Sen. Lisa Cutter, and Reps. Lorena Garcia and Rebekah Stewart; the ACLU supports the bill, while opponents include Republican lawmakers, the towns of Fountain, Monument, and Woodland Park, and DA Michael Allen, and it would also remove prostitution as a public‑nuisance basis and lift certain massage‑licensing barriers.