State Sen. Pam Roach, R-Sumner, has been kicked off a state task force on sex trafficking after multiple claims that she made offensive comments and blamed victims of human trafficking at a meeting last month, the Seattle Times reports.
Lt. Gov. Brad Owen, who presides over the state Senate, removed Roach from the task force in a letter last Friday. "Among other fictions, you claimed that sexually trafficked and homeless youth are deliberately trying not to fit in with their families by tattooing their faces and getting piercings," Owen wrote in the letter. Owen's letter says his office interviewed attendees of the December meeting in question, all of whom were nearly in agreement concerning Roach’s behavior. Owen told the News Tribune early this afternoon that she hadn't read the letter but that she has done considerable work on the trafficking issue.
Her removal from the task force is just the latest reprimand in the senator's long history of controversy. For a time, she was banned from Republican caucus meetings.
