Judge Michael Scott pauses implementation and enforcement of portions of Jim Walsh's Initiative 2081
A nonprofit-led coalition scored a crucial initial victory today in its lawsuit to protect Washingtonians from the consequences of a right wing initiative enacted several weeks ago by state lawmakers. King County Superior Court Judge Michael Scott granted a partial preliminary injunction that bars the state from implementing and enforcing some of the most problematic provisions of Initiative 2081, a measure sponsored by State Republican Party Chair Jim Walsh, which attacked the balance between student privacy and parental rights in an effort to stoke the right wing’s culture war agenda.
I‑2081 is one of the six “Let’s Go Washington” measures sponsored by Walsh and funded by multimillionaire Brian Heywood. It qualified as an initiative to the 2024 Washington State Legislature in January after Heywood dumped millions of dollars into a signature drive to purchase signatures for it and its five brethren.
Assessing its possible repercussions to be limited, given that it appeared to have been written principally to be a culture war messaging vehicle, Democratic legislators decided to take the measure off the ballot by passing it into law during the latter days of the 2024 legislative session in March. In doing so, they not only freed up ballot real estate that would have otherwise promoted one of Walsh’s messages, they preserved the Legislature’s ability to amend I‑2081 in the 2025 legislative session by majority vote.
Ostensibly, I‑2081 purports to be about parental notification, but as mentioned, it was written to be a messaging vehicle for the right wing’s ongoing culture war campaign. The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction informed lawmakers that much of what was in I‑2081 was simply restating what was already in state law — meaning, the initiative wouldn’t give parents many rights or powers they didn’t already have.
https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2024/06/judge-michael-scott-pauses-implementation-and-enforcement-of-portions-of-jim-walshs-initiative-2081.html