Comprehensive sexual health education has finally cleared the Washington State House!

Leg­is­la­tion that would require all pub­lic schools to pro­vide com­pre­hen­sive sex­u­al health edu­ca­tion (known as CSHE for short) to each stu­dent by the 2022–23 school year cleared the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives last night sev­er­al hours before day­break after a gru­el­ing, pro­tract­ed floor debate that was unnec­es­sar­i­ly drawn out by the cham­ber’s Repub­li­can minority.

House pas­sage of Engrossed Sen­ate Sub­sti­tute Bill 5395 is a huge win for Wash­ing­ton’s youth and a major accom­plish­ment for the House Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus, which had to over­come a tor­rent of Repub­li­can amend­ments just to get the bill con­sid­ered and vot­ed upon. Last year, ESSB 5395 did not make it out of com­mit­tee in the House. This year, it went all the way through the chamber.

The bill, request­ed by Super­in­ten­dent of Pub­lic Instruc­tion Chris Reyk­dal and over­whelm­ing­ly sup­port­ed by Wash­ing­to­ni­ans, has passed the Sen­ate twice.

ESSB 5395 is also one of NPI’s major 2020 leg­isla­tive priorities.

Now the bill going back to where it start­ed for rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, because the House made sev­er­al sig­nif­i­cant changes to it. Assum­ing the Sen­ate con­curs with those changes, the bill will land on Gov­er­nor Inslee’s desk by ses­sion’s end with no fur­ther action need­ed by the House of Representatives.

The roll call in the House was as follows:

ESSB 5395
Sex­u­al health education
House vote on Final Pas­sage as Amend­ed by the House
3/4/2020

Yeas: 56; Nays: 40; Excused: 2

Vot­ing Yea: Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Apple­ton, Bergquist, Blake, Callan, Chap­man, Chopp, Cody, Davis, Doglio, Dolan, Duerr, Enten­man, Fey, Fitzgib­bon, Frame, Good­man, Gregerson, Hansen, Hud­gins, John­son, J., Kil­duff, Kir­by, Klo­ba, Leav­itt, Lekanoff, Lovick, Macri, Mor­gan, Orms­by, Ortiz-Self, Orwall, Paul, Pel­lic­ciot­ti, Peter­son, Pet­ti­grew, Pol­let, Ramel, Ramos, Ric­cel­li, Robin­son, Ryu, San­tos, Sells, Senn, Shew­make, Slat­ter, Springer, Stonier, Sul­li­van, Tar­leton, Thai, Tharinger, Valdez, Walen, Wylie, Jinkins

Vot­ing Nay: Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Barkis, Boehnke, Caldier, Cham­bers, Chan­dler, Cor­ry, Dent, Dufault, Dye, Eslick, Gildon, Goehn­er, Gra­ham, Grif­fey, Har­ris, Hoff, Irwin, Jenkin, Klip­pert, Kraft, Kretz, MacEwen, May­cum­ber, McCaslin, Mos­bruck­er, Orcutt, Rude, Schmick, Shea, Smith, Steele, Stokes­bary, Suther­land, Van Wer­ven, Vick, Volz, Walsh, Wilcox, Ybar­ra, Young

Excused: Rep­re­sen­ta­tive DeBolt, Mead

Each cau­cus had one mem­ber excused. The remain­ing Democ­rats vot­ed to pass the bill, while the remain­ing Repub­li­cans vot­ed against passage.

“First and fore­most, this bill is about safe­ty,” explained prime spon­sor Claire Wil­son in a news release. It’s about giv­ing stu­dents the knowl­edge they need to rec­og­nize and resist inap­pro­pri­ate behav­iors — from small chil­dren tar­get­ed by pedophiles, to old­er stu­dents pres­sured to have sex by their peers.”

“Sec­ond, this bill is about health. Young peo­ple ages fif­teen to twen­ty-four rep­re­sent one-fourth of the sex­u­al­ly active pop­u­la­tion but acquire half of all new STIs. Stud­ies con­sis­tent­ly show that the most effec­tive pro­grams include com­pre­hen­sive sex­u­al health or HIV edu­ca­tion — or both — and the com­pre­hen­sive approach is proven to reduce unin­tend­ed preg­nan­cy and STIs.”

“Par­ents and com­mu­ni­ties are crit­i­cal part­ners in ensur­ing that our stu­dents are healthy and suc­cess­ful, which is why it is so impor­tant that this bill strength­ens parental rights,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mon­i­ca Stonier (D‑Vancouver), who spon­sored com­pan­ion leg­is­la­tion in the House. “Teach­ing stu­dents how to be good friends, how to say no to unwant­ed touch­es, and how to devel­op healthy, respect­ful rela­tion­ships are all build­ing blocks of pub­lic education.”

Repub­li­cans were livid.

“Sen­ate Bill 5395 was passed in the dead of night (2:00 AM) when most reporters had gone home,” groused Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Joe Schmick in an email, con­ve­nient­ly neglect­ing to men­tion that the debate had begun more than six hours ear­li­er and only dragged on until 2 AM because he and his cau­cus had insist­ed in stretch­ing out the pro­ceed­ings for as long as pos­si­ble in an attempt to kill the bill.

Schmick also com­plained that most of the two hun­dred amend­ments filed by Repub­li­cans against the bill were not con­sid­ered, with­out both­er­ing to admit that most of the amend­ments were offered not in the hopes of improv­ing the bill, but with the objec­tive of killing off the bill. (More than a dozen Repub­li­can amend­ments were con­sid­ered and all of them were rejected.)

“Despite mas­sive oppo­si­tion from school offi­cials, teach­ers and par­ents around the state, the major­i­ty par­ty decid­ed to turn a deaf ear and pass Sen­ate Bill 5395,” grum­bled Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bob McCaslin.

“Man­dat­ing sex edu­ca­tion for our kinder­gart­ners and ele­men­tary school stu­dents is the wrong direc­tion for our state,” McCaslin added.

Nev­er mind that the bill sen­si­bly requires only age-appro­pri­ate cur­ricu­lum… Repub­li­cans keep ped­dling this myth that the bill will result in kids being taught inap­pro­pri­ate sub­ject mat­ter. They are wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Repub­li­cans are also wrong when they claim their posi­tion is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the sen­ti­ments of the peo­ple of this state. Our research clear­ly shows that vot­ers over­whelm­ing­ly sup­port this leg­is­la­tion. 67% of respon­dents polled last autumn backed ESSB 5395, with 49% express­ing strong sup­port. Just 22% were opposed and 11% were not sure. Those are very strong numbers.

Hav­ing failed in their efforts to kill the bill, Repub­li­cans are now mak­ing wild­ly hyper­bol­ic state­ments about how it will deprive chil­dren of their inno­cence and rip apart com­mu­ni­ties. But the truth is the bill will empow­er Wash­ing­ton’s youth. It does not take away par­ents’ rights or threat­en any­one’s inno­cence. Knowl­edge is pow­er and there is no excuse or jus­ti­fi­ca­tion — none — for fail­ing to equip young Wash­ing­to­ni­ans with the infor­ma­tion they need to make healthy decisions.