Dear Friends and Neighbors,
You may have heard that two citizen-led initiatives have been certified recently and are now before the Legislature. If passed, one would restore parents’ rights to know what’s happening to their children in public school (IL26-001).The other would ban biological boys living as transgender girls from competing in girls’ sports (IL26-638).
Let’s take a closer look.
Restoring parents’ rights (IL2-001): This bill seeks to restore and reenact the “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” which was passed by the Legislature in 2024 as Initiative 2081 and partially repealed by Democrats in 2025. This proposal would ensure parents have the right to review all educational materials, access their children’s medical and mental-health records, and be notified before medical services are provided to their children at school.
As a parent of four, this seems pretty commonsense to me. We don’t give up our rights to information about our children and their education the moment they step into a classroom. Teachers and administrators should not be allowed to keep secrets from parents about their children’s wellbeing or any medical interventions being led by school staff unless that child is being abused.
Last year, the Majority gutted the parents’ rights bill that had passed the year before. As a result, schools can delay telling you about safety/criminal issues involving your child for up to 48 hours after an incident. They can withhold certain mental-health and medical information. And your right to opt your child out of certain curriculum materials is very narrow.
Ironically, in 2024, the initial Parents’ Bill of Rights passed unanimously in the Senate and received an 82-15 bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives – yet many of those who supported I-2081 turned around and voted to weaken it less than a year after the law had taken effect. The effort to hide things from parents is led by special-interest groups who claim to have your children’s best interest at heart, but actually serve an agenda rejected by most.
Banning biological boys from girls’ sports (IL26-638): This initiative aims to prohibit “biologically male” students from participating in school-sponsored sports designated for female students. It would require students to provide a statement from a healthcare provider verifying their biological sex based on reproductive anatomy, genetics, or natural testosterone levels. A genetic test would be a simple cheek swab or blood test, and a testosterone test would also be run from a blood sample.
This initiative upholds the original intent of Title IX, which was to provide women and girls with dedicated opportunities to compete. Allowing biological males into these categories can displace female athletes, rolling back 54 years of hard-fought civil rights protections for women and girls.
The primary goal is to preserve a level playing field. Scientific data indicates that biological males typically possess physiological advantages that persist even after hormone therapy.
As of early this year, 27 states have passed laws restricting sports participation based on biological sex. Washington would be joining a growing national consensus on fairness in women’s sports. National polling consistently shows that 68-70% of Americans believe transgender athletes should compete on teams that match their biological sex, so this should also be considered a common-sense policy.
How can you share your thoughts?
Majority Democrats have refused to hold a public hearing on either initiative, despite the Washington State Constitution declaring that addressing initiatives is the top priority for the Legislature other than budget legislation.
However, you can sign in as PRO or CON on the initiatives by clicking or scanning the QR code below.
Scan this code or click on it to sign in as PRO or CON for the initiatives.
You can also submit written comments online. Choose one of these links and click on the button that says “Send comment to your legislators.”
Banning biological boys from girls’ sports (IL26-638)
Restoring parents’ rights (IL2-001):
If you have questions or concerns, you can email me at john.braun@leg.wa.gov.
Sincerely,
Senator John Braun
An attack on your right to direct Democracy
During the 2025 and 2026 legislative sessions, Democrats sponsored two bills that aim to severely curtail the ability of the citizens of Washington to file initiatives to the Legislature — a constitutional right that gives the people the power to change specific policies.
We call the bills “Initiative Killer” and “Initiative Killer 2.0.” In line with the colorful nicknames, these two bills are a threat to the people’s right to engage in direct democracy.
Initiative Killer (Senate Bill 5382): Requires signature gatherers circulating initiative and referendum petitions to sign declarations as to the validity of the signatures, for which they would be personally liable. This is despite no evidence of a single invalid signature having been counted on an initiative. Similar legislation in Oregon more than tripled the cost to qualify an initiative (to $500,000, instead of $150,000).
Initiative Killer 2.0 (Senate Bill 5973): Prohibits signature gatherers from being paid for each signature collected and requires a minimum of 1,000 signatures to be submitted when the initiative is proposed — even before the minimum 400,000 signatures to file it can be collected. This would disincentivize people from working as signature gatherers and it would slow down, or even stop, the filing process.
Several years ago, Democrats managed to pass other legislation that limited voters’ ability to weigh in on specific policy by banning “advisory votes.” These would appear on the ballot as a list of taxes passed by Democrats and voters could then say whether or not they thought any should be repealed. While these votes were strictly advisory and did not actually repeal taxes, they put a spotlight on government greed and uncontrolled spending.
Arguing that voters were easily confused by advisory votes, Democrats successfully fought to eliminate them, effectively keeping people in the dark while they dug deeper into our pockets.
In news articles before this year’s session began, Democrat leaders claimed voters gave them the majority in the Legislature, therefore they had a mandate to proceed with their agenda – whatever that might include. That’s false: there was no statewide vote to put Democrats in control, the voters chose on a district-by-district basis — and Democrats simply won more of those seats than Republicans. And any time individual policies in that agenda are called into question by the people, Democrats resist the scrutiny.
What are they afraid of? Are they worried that the people of Washington want transparency and accountability, including the chance to directly rewrite specific policy they don’t like?
Whether or not you support either one of the initiatives currently before the Legislature is not the point. You might support one next year or the year after that, and as Democrats continue their efforts to undermine the process of direct democracy, they undermine your rights as well.
You can help protect the citizen-initiative process and stop these bills.
Contact the chair of the Senate Committee on State Government, Tribal Affairs and Elections. He’s also the prime sponsor of the Initiative Killer bills.