"It's a sea change in terms of how this issue has been dealt with through the ages," a celebratory Harris said in 2004 after the state Legislature approved the bill. "It's finally in black and white, legislated, that adults cannot buy children for sex."
In one of her first acts as an elected official, Harris sponsored a bill signed into law by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that increased penalties for adults who solicited sex from minors.
Lawmakers cried hearing testimony in the California Capitol from teenagers sold for sex and imprisoned for it.
But advocates across the political spectrum in California credit Harris for helping create that 'sea change' she predicted decades ago and for bringing a once under-the-radar crime to the bipartisan mainstream.
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