The Washington state businessman who spent millions of dollars of his own money last year promoting a slate of conservative ballot initiatives is preparing to go back to the voters if Democratic lawmakers gut the new Parents' Bill of Rights this spring.
The parental-rights initiative was one of seven ballot measures that Brian Heywood and his Let's Go Washington political committee proposed and fought for last year. Heywood, the CEO of a Kirkland-based long-term investment fund, spent more than $6 million to gather signatures to qualify the initiatives for the ballot.
Last year, Democrats in the legislature strategically approved three of the initiatives — including I-2081, the Parents' Bill of Rights — to keep them off the November ballot.
The Parents' Bill of Rights specified 15 rights that Washington State parents have regarding access to educational records and materials and notifications around law enforcement encounters, academics, and medical and mental-health matters.
"They did sort of a wink wink, nod nod to their base saying, 'We're voting for them now, but we'll change them next year,'" Heywood told National Review.
And that, he said, is what they're doing.
Democrats in both the state House and Senate filed bills this year — Senate Bill 5181 and House Bill 1296 — aimed at amending the law, allegedly to prioritize student safety.
The bills would add a handful of new rights, including the right to an education without discrimination, harassment, or bullying.
"When kids don't feel safe at school they aren't focusing on the book in front of them or the lesson being taught in the classroom—they're focused on what they're feeling: fear, anxiety and loneliness that comes from discrimination, harassment, bullying, and abuse," state representative Monica Jurado Stonier, a Democrat from Vancouver and a sponsor of the House bill, wrote in a Facebook post in January.
But the bills would also remove several parental rights established by last year's initiative, including the right of parents to receive notification when medical services are offered or provided to their child, including medical services that could cost them money, and the right to be notified when a school arranges of for medical treatments that result in follow-up care after normal school hours, according to bill analyses.
Heywood said the attempt to remove those parental rights are primarily about two things: abortion and transgender treatments for students. "Everyone is dancing around it pretending like those aren't the two underlying issues," he said.
In early March, when it appeared that the Senate bill would be the primary vehicle to enact the Democrats' changes, Heywood introduced a new initiative to repeal it if it passed. The Senate passed their bill and sent it to the House. Democrats in the House then amended their own bill to more closely resemble the Senate version and passed it in the middle of the night in mid-March after about six hours of debate.
During the debate, Democrats claimed the bill was "essential" to ensure that schools are safe spaces for all, and that it was necessary to "clarify the confusion and chaos" created by the parental-rights initiative, which they approved just last year.
Republicans countered that the Democrat's new bill isn't about clearing up confusion.
"We are here because the Washington state legislature decided to undo the will of the people," said Representative Jeremie Dufault, a Republican. About 450,000 people signed Let's Go Washington petitions in support of the parental-rights initiative.
Representative Jim Walsh said the Parents' Bill of Rights "creates trust" and "good will" because parents "know what can't be hidden from them." His Republican colleague, Representative Matt Marshall, said he rejects the notion that in order to have a safe and supportive learning environment "we must strip away rights from parents and guardians."
"I have trouble believing that the best way forward for a child's mental health is to make sure that the parents don't even know what's going on," he said.
Representative Travis Couture, a Republican, said it is "sad" but not surprising that Democrats are already attempting to overhaul the parental-rights initiative.
"I don't co-parent with the government, and the schools have concerning secrecy policies where we're hiding curriculum and mental-health records and health records and so many other different things," he said during debate, adding that "the state doesn't own our kids."
It's not clear that either bill will make it to the desk of Governor Bob Ferguson, in part due to Democratic power politics. "There's a whole ton of games being played," Heywood said.
He said Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen appears gun-shy after receiving flak for a statement he made in February about abortions for underage girls.
“If they’re old enough to get pregnant, they're old enough to make their own decisions about what happens with their bodies, okay. And parents do not [have] the right to change that,” Pedersen, a Democrat, said in an interview in reference to a proposed amendment.
Heywood said he'll move forward with a ballot initiative directly to the voters if Democrats in the legislature pass any bill gutting parents' rights, regardless of the bill number.
"If they don't, I'm totally happy not to have to run something," he said.
He said he's also considering initiatives involving school choice and protecting girls' sports. Heywood has said his goal is "to put common sense back on the ballot."
Washington voters only approved one of the four Let's Go Washington initiatives on the ballot last November, an initiative barring the state and local governments from restricting access to natural gas or gas appliances. A King County Superior Court judge recently ruled that the measure was unconstitutional because it was too broad and violated the state's single-subject rule. Supporters of the initiative have vowed to appeal the ruling.
Three other Let's Go Washington initiatives — a state income tax ban, police-pursuit policy, and the parental-rights bill — were passed by the legislature with bipartisan majorities last year, part of the Democrats' strategy to keep them off the ballot.
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