Washington Senate Democrats vote to strip rights of public school parents

On Wednesday, Washington Senate Democrats unanimously voted to strip parental rights from legislation they passed with Republicans last year, according to the Seattle Times. Senate Bill 5181 undermines Initiative 2081, also known as the Parental Rights Initiative, that the chamber passed in bipartisan fashion in 2024.

Washington voters gathered over 454,000 signatures to bring Initiative 2081 before the Legislature. The bill lays out 15 rights that parents of public school students have, including notifying parents of academic, medical, safety, and law enforcement issues and the right to examine and request records and educational materials. The measure was part of a slate of common sense citizen initiatives last session, intended for a statewide vote. Three initiatives were sent to the ballot and the rest, including the parental rights, were passed by the Democratic-controlled Legislature.

The Democrats shot down many commonsense amendments to SB 5181, including an amendment that would restore provisions granting parents and legal guardians the right to receive notification when medical services are offered to their child.

Despite originally supporting the initiative, Democrats have been seeking to undermine it since its passage. Last week, a judge dismissed a lawsuit attempting to block several aspects of the bill.

Before the initiative went into effect June 6, the ACLU and other legal advocacy organizations filed a joint lawsuit in May arguing it included “vague and broad language” with the potential to harm youth from marginalized communities.

Speaker of the House Laurie Jinkins (D-Tacoma) and now-Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen, (D-Seattle), who are leading the charge to gut the parental rights, previously wrote an op-ed in the Seattle Times claiming they voted for it because approximately 90 percent of the initiative was already state law. 

If passed by both chambers and signed by Gov. Bob Ferguson, the legislation would remove parental rights to notification of medical services and treatment provided to children and certain notifications of criminal action and law enforcement involvement at the school.

Every Senate Republican voted against the bill. Rep. Travis Couture (R-Allyn) told reporters that Democrats’ actions were a “slap in the face to democracy.” He said, “Democrats stood up on the House floor and said that they were feeling safe to pass this because they didn’t think it would change anything,” noting that Democrats who voted to pass the measure knew they would return this legislative session to “reverse it.”

The companion legislation in the House, HB 1296 is still working its way through the chamber. Last week, Democrats in the House voted against an amendment that would have required school districts to immediately notify parents if their student is the victim of sexual misconduct by a school employee. Couture, who proposed the amendment, posted on X, “How any sane person could deny my amendment is outrageous.” He said during a hearing on the bill, “We have seen a stunning amount of sexual misconduct and sexual assaults by educators in our schools just in the last year itself, including two principals in a Vancouver school district that hid from parents a statutory rape of a 16-year-old female student in their school by one of their staff.”

The move by the Washington Democrats caught the attention of both Elon Musk and President Donald Trump, who posted on Truth Social, “Washington State Democrats voted not to inform parents if a child is sexually abused by a school employee.”
 

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) called the move by Washington Democrats “utterly insane.”