Bills We Opposed:
SB 5205/ HB 2237 : Thank you for your support! HB 2237 is officially Dead! A special thanks to lawmakers who listened to survivors: Senator Fortunato, Representative Rule, Representative Griffey, Representative Graham, Representative Walsh, Representative Nance and more. I will leave the following information here if you want to read about this bill. Organizations officially signing on against HB 2237 / SB 5205 include local groups: FVAP; Jewish Family Services, A Case for Ace, PAYES, One Mom’s Battle, and Her Harbor and National Safe Parents Organization. HB 2237 (began as SB 5205 in 2023) was quietly introduced last year claiming to be a “clean up bill” but had substantiative changes wiping out survivor protections in the high-risk factor custody statute RCW 26.09.191. This bill would destroy a statute that has been mostly unchanged for 35 years, since 1987. HB 2237 goes against the authority on RCW 26.09.191 statute, FVAP; is incompatible with the federal Violence Against Women Act; and erases potentially 66 appellate caselaw decisions. HB 2237 claims to have been rewritten with survivor input in the interim in 2023, but most survivors input was removed, and the bill now would create a pathway for abusers to continue to abuse dv survivor parents through shared decision making; would create a pathway for less risky factors (“alienation,” “emotional impairment” even PTSD, and drug/alcohol issues) to be more determinative than domestic violence, child abuse and sexual child abuse; would put good faith appeals out of reach by raising the threshold for survivor parents to appeal their dangerous court decisions; and much more. There are no added guardrails to protect survivors, the only language that’s “good” to survivors is the language that only encourages but doesn’t require the judge to protect the survivor parent. Our letter our advocates sent to lawmakers: Stop Abusing Women and Children and Stop Divorce Industrial Complex. Our letters and our partner’s letters against HB 2237: Open Letter against HB 2237, HB 2237 Fails, Why Judges Don’t Follow Optional Laws in Family Court, National Expert’s Letter Exposing HB 2237, Family Violence Appellate Project’s (FVAP) Analysis Strongly Opposing HB 2237, and a series of articles on this topic and HB 2237 at WA Family Court Series.
Bills We Support:
HB 2010 / SB 5879: Vote YES: Unfortunately the deadline for this bill to be heard in committee has passed. I will leave the following information anyways: Federal Violence Against Women Act in Washington State, aka Kayden’s Law. This law requires judicial training re domestic violence and child abuse, requires experts to have knowledge about domestic violence and child abuse to testify about it, requires courts to consider domestic violence and child abuse, and bans abusers accessing harmful reunification treatment prior to domestic violence rehabilitation. With bi-partisan support, congress passed the federal provisions which HB 2010 is based on in order to address the family court crisis and improve protections for victims. now Washington has an opportunity to become eligible to receive federal funding by passing HB 2010. Colorado, California, Maryland, and Tennessee have already enacted portions of this important federal law, but in Washington thus far, both chairs have have not given it a hearing because they incorrectly claim “HB 2237 accomplishes the same thing,” but the truth is that the language protecting women and children against violence approved by congress and held out as a model at the united nations human rights council goes in direct opposition to the judges bill HB 2237, which gives judges even more discretion than they already have yet no training nor guardrails in abuse cases. ASK: contact your lawmakers in the interim and educate them about family court and how Kayden’s law saves children.