Last year Democrats in the Washington Legislature made a strategic move to enact a citizen initiative called the Parents' Bill of Rights rather than letting it go to voters.
The law is now fully in effect after a judge ruled against the ACLU in a lawsuit.
Amendments to the law are advancing through the legislature this session, and they're stirring up debate about teenagers' rights to health care services and privacy.
Olympia correspondent Jeanie Lindsay joined KNKX Morning Edition host Kirsten Kendrick to discuss why this is a priority for Democrats, how federal politics factor in, and what's next.
Click “Listen” above to hear their conversation, or find the transcript below.
Transcript
Note: This transcript is provided for reference only and may contain typos. Please confirm accuracy before quoting.
KNKX Morning Edition host Kirsten Kendrick: Jeanie, let's start with what concerns the Democrats have about the Parents' Bill of Rights.
Olympia Correspondent Jeanie Lindsay: Yeah, so this initiative that came up last session was not one that Democrats wrote. It came from conservative groups. It came – some of the language – from Republicans who had been talking about this issue for, for several years.
The legislation, this, this initiative itself added in more than a dozen rights for parents to have over their child's education – access to school and mental health records, opting out of certain lessons or surveys and things like that.
And a staff analysis at the time said it was largely duplicative of existing regulations or not as specific in some places. And so Democrats really this year are saying that they want to bring all of this language into alignment with all the various regulations that it touches.
And they also have some concerns around privacy for mental health care and school-based records for teens.
Kendrick: That's interesting. Can you explain a little bit more about that privacy concern?
Lindsay: The concern around this is that the initiative added language into state law that essentially would let parents request any sort of record of of mental health treatment or mental health care, that a student might receive at school.
And there's concern that, from the Democrats in particular, that this could threaten the safety and security of LGBTQ students or kids who don't have a supportive or safe home life because their parents could ask for these records and then essentially be outed – these students could be to parents that they might not be comfortable or ready to talk with about that sort of stuff. And so there's this, this worry that it's going to make these vulnerable students more at risk.
Kendrick: As lawmakers are having this debate in Olympia at the federal level, President Trump has issued a series of executive orders that legitimize concerns that schools are trying to quote “indoctrinate” kids when it comes to issues of race and gender and hide things from parents, right?
Lindsay: Yeah, I mean this conversation around parents' rights and and trust with schools and access to child's education, it's been a long standing one, regardless of who is president. But I think it's one of those things that, Washington has a very unique set of laws around gender-affirming care, reproductive health, and then the age of consent for a young person, someone 13 years old, can get mental health care without the consent of their parents.
Meanwhile, you have a federal administration that is sort of fanning the flames around gender issues and schools issues, as Washington lawmakers are trying to find the line between supporting vulnerable students and ensuring that they're safe, but also making sure that parents have trust in their schools and access to what their kids are doing when they're not at home and they're at school for hours every day.
Kendrick: So what's next with all this, Jeanie?
Lindsay: Democrats in the Legislature have said that changes to this parents' rights initiative are among their top priorities this session. Last time we talked with legislative leaders about this, they said they want to get this bill to the governor's desk soon. This legislation also has an emergency clause in it, so once it is signed into law, it goes into effect, and that's because of the arguments Democrats say that these are really urgent matters to resolve.
Kendrick: All right, Jeanie, thank you so much. I know you'll keep reporting on this.
Lindsay: I sure will. Thanks.
Kendrick: That's Olympia correspondent Jeanie Lindsay.
The group behind the parents' rights law is already working to turn back the changes from Democrats, if they're passed. Let's Go Washington announced this week it's filed a new initiative proposal to do just that. They will need to gather more than 300,000 validated signatures before July 3 to get this new initiative on the ballot in November.
