John Braun: Attack on new parental-rights law shows how far Democrats’ priorities are off

Friday, January 24, 2025

When the Legislature’s majority Democrats joined Republicans to pass the parental-rights initiative during our 2024 session, did they do so to keep the popular measure from being passed by voters in November, making it possible for them to gut the new law this year over Republican objections?

We will never know that answer for sure, but one thing is certain: Our Democratic colleagues in the state Senate have wasted no time in acting to undermine the Initiative 2081 law, less than a year after it was created.

Senate Bill 5181, which would sabotage major sections of the parental-rights law, was hustled through the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Committee on Jan. 23.

Republicans expect it will be part of the first package of bills to reach the floor of the Senate chamber, perhaps as soon as Feb. 5.

This purely partisan attempt to weaken or eliminate many of the rights guaranteed in the law created by Initiative 2081 wouldn’t just override the 454,000 Washington voters who demanded a vote on the measure by signing the I-2081 petitions.

It also represents a total betrayal of the parents and guardians across our state who saw the parental-rights law as providing a path to a more transparent and constructive relationship with their local schools.

Democrats are trying very hard to portray this as a “cleanup” bill. No one should believe that.

If this was simply about cleaning up the language in the parental-rights law, there would be no reason for Democrats to propose doing away with some of the most important rights it established, and push for major changes to other parts of the policy.

There also is no legitimate need to put a rush on changes of any kind, good or bad. That’s because the implementation of the parental-rights law has been on hold due to a preliminary injunction granted in late June 2024, just two weeks after the law took effect.

Speaking to the education committee, the prime sponsor of the bill repeatedly denied that SB 5181 is an effort to overhaul or implode the parental-rights law. But the details in the bill say otherwise.

If SB 5181 becomes law in the form that came out of the Senate education committee, it will end the right of parents to receive prior notification from the school when non-emergency medical services are offered to their child.

The same goes for the right of parents to be notified when the school has arranged directly or indirectly for medical treatment that results in follow-up care beyond normal school hours.

Under SB 5181, schools would only have to disclose such information — and disclosure means parents are forced to pull it from the school by asking the right questions.

That would be a huge step backwards from “notification,” as the law states now, which means the school must actively push the information to the parent.

The parental-rights law also requires schools to immediately notify parents if — during school time, on school property — their child commits a crime, is the victim of a crime, or is questioned by police about something not related to parental neglect or abuse.

Through their SB 5181, Democrats want to do away with the immediate-notification rule and replace it with “at the first opportunity, but in all cases within 48 hours.”

I know of no parent who would be comfortable waiting up to two days to learn their child had been the victim of a crime or had been questioned by law enforcement on school grounds, during school time.

The parental-rights law gives school districts 10 business days to provide a child’s education records, after a request is made. SB 5181 would inexplicably extend the deadline to 45 days.

If this wasn’t enough already, SB 5181 includes language that — if the legislation becomes law – would prevent voters from filing a referendum to challenge it at the ballot box.

The depth of the Democrats’ betrayal is best illustrated by comments made before every Democratic member of our state Senate and three-fourths of the Democrats in the House of Representatives joined Republican legislators in passing I-2081.

An example came a few days before the March 4, 2024 vote, when Sen. Claire Wilson of Federal Way said she was “comfortable” supporting the initiative because she didn’t believe it changed “any of the protections for our young people, especially for those who identify as LGBTQ and gender-expansive.”

Senator Wilson is now the prime sponsor of SB 5181. To be fair, her comments in 2024 also left the door open to proposing changes in the law — but it’s not unfair to question whether the changes being proposed now were part of the Democrats’ strategy all along, ever since I-2081 was certified early in the 2024 session.

Between the 10 sponsors of SB 5181 and those on the education committee who voted on Jan. 23 to move the bill forward, close to half of the Senate Democrats are on record as wanting to dismantle the parental-rights law.

Who are they listening to? Senator Wilson claims Democrats are trying to “provide clarity” to school districts, yet the school-board members who testified at the public hearing on SB 5181 were opposed to her bill.

The president of the Eatonville School Board made her view perfectly clear, telling committee members how the passage of I-2081 had helped in rebuilding relationships and increasing trust among families, schools and communities after the challenges of the pandemic.

SB 5181, she said, creates unnecessary division and risks “alienating families at a time when engagement is more critical than ever.”

A representative of the Washington State Catholic Conference was equally straightforward, testifying that while schools may act in place of parents while students are in their custody, “nothing in that role gives schools the right to act against the parents’ superior role as the actual parent of a child.”

Exactly. Unfortunately, the radical changes Democrats want in Washington’s parental-rights law would put government between teens and their parents, at a time when these young people could benefit most from parental guidance.

It’s hard to believe Democrats would put such a high priority on overriding voters and betraying parents – but they do seem determined. This is not the way to make our state better.

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Sen. John Braun of Centralia serves the 20th Legislative District, which spans parts of four counties from Yelm to Vancouver. He became Senate Republican leader in 2020.

https://chronline.com/stories/john-braun-attack-on-new-parental-rights-law-shows-how-far-democrats-priorities-are-off,374276?