Note: This was distributed Jan. 30, 2025. To subscribe to Sen. Gildon’s e-newsletters, click here. 
I always appreciate seeing students from our legislative district, like these 12th-graders from Chief Leschi School. We met in the State Reception Room during their visit to the Capitol this past week.
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
The state Senate didn’t vote on the parental-rights initiative until there were just four days left in the 2024 legislative session. Still, Initiative 2081 was passed, with every Democrat and Republican senator voting in support. The vote in the House wasn’t unanimous but it was overwhelmingly positive, and very bipartisan.
Knowing that, it’s almost unbelievable that legislation to dismantle the parental-rights law could be the first bill to be passed in the Senate this legislative session.
This is despite declarations made by prominent Democrats, prior to the March 4 votes on I-2081, that they did not see the initiative posing a threat to LGBTQ+ youth.
Today they portray Senate Bill 5181 as an effort to “clean up” the language in the parental-rights law, but that claim doesn’t stand up when you see how their changes would delete parental rights related to medical care of their children during school hours, and significantly alter other rights guaranteed by the initiative.
 Here’s how important parts of the parental-rights law would change under the partisan SB 5181. Words with lines through them (like this) would be deleted from the parental-rights law, and the underlined words would be added.
I know no parent who would want to be kept in the dark about any medical services offered to or arranged for their child by the school. And who would appreciate waiting up to 2 days to learn that their child had contact with law enforcement during school hours on school property?
It’s also insulting that the supporters of this attack on the parental-rights law included language in SB 5181 that would prohibit a voter referendum, if the bill passes. Do they fear giving parents an opportunity to express themselves at the ballot?
This legislation seems to be a blatant example of acting in bad faith. When the sponsors of SB 5181 voted to pass I-2081, which kept it off the November ballot – and may have affected the outcomes of the other initiatives in that election – did they do so planning to come back in 2025 and undo the very law they had professed to support? It sure makes you wonder.
This would also explain why the state superintendent of public instruction, just one day before the law took effect, instructed school districts to avoid making changes to policies and procedures covered by I-2081. It’s as though he was in on the plot as well.
  Each of the sponsors of SB 5181, which would eliminate many of the rights guaranteed in the I-2081 law, had voted “yea” (yes) on the initiative only about 10 months earlier.
Democrats on the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Committee, which is chaired by one of SB 5181’s sponsors, acted quickly to move the bill forward. Perhaps they figured a lawsuit filed in King County against the parental-rights law would fail – and it did, this past Friday.
Republicans are preparing for SB 5181 to come to the floor of the Senate for a vote next Wednesday. If it does, that would be very telling about the true priorities of the majority.
This isn’t happening only in the Senate; a similar anti-parental rights bill is moving through the House. You have to question who the Democrats are listening to – because it can’t be the parents I know, or the 454,000 voters who signed the petitions leading to the passage of I-2081.
I’ll finish with this: When a child is facing a crisis, the results don’t improve when parents are removed from the situation. However, keeping parents at a distance is the goal of SB 5181.
A new approach to encouraging participation in drug treatment
Most of the legislation I have filed this session has to do with the state budget, which is in keeping with my position as Senate Republican budget leader – but I’m also offering ideas on important issues like public safety, which is another Senate Republican priority.
The latest example is Senate Bill 5569, which would streamline the process for getting people into drug treatment after they’ve run afoul of the law.
If a court were to have the ability to release a defendant from jail directly to a facility for substance-use disorder, it seems to me that would be both more humane and better for the community. I’d rather have someone who needs treatment to get started down that path instead of sitting around in jail – or being free to commit other crimes because they had been released on their personal recognizance.
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