Over two in three Washington voters support comprehensive sexual health education

Tonight, the Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives is engaged in a lengthy, seri­ous debate about Engrossed Sub­sti­tute Sen­ate Bill 5395, the com­pre­hen­sive sex­u­al health edu­ca­tion leg­is­la­tion request­ed by Super­in­ten­dent of Pub­lic Instruc­tion Chris Reyk­dal. ESSB 5395 is one of NPI’s top leg­isla­tive pri­or­i­ties for the 2020 ses­sion and has drawn fierce, heat­ed oppo­si­tion from Republicans.

The bill passed the Sen­ate on a par­ty-line vote sev­er­al weeks ago and has been wind­ing its way through the House after dying in com­mit­tee last session.

This evening, ESSB 5395 final­ly reached the floor of the House.

Repub­li­cans, hop­ing to kill the bill, filed more than a hun­dred amend­ments against it, which you can see on the bil­l’s sum­ma­ry page. Speak­er Lau­rie Jink­ins decid­ed to bring the bill for­ward any­way, and the House is knee-deep in con­sid­er­a­tion of amend­ments as of this hour, with no end in sight.

Rank and file Repub­li­can mem­bers of the House — furi­ous at the prospect of the bill over­com­ing the obsta­cles they’ve thrown in its path — are refus­ing to abide by the rules and pro­ce­dures nego­ti­at­ed between the House Demo­c­ra­t­ic and House Repub­li­can cau­cus lead­er­ship for the bil­l’s con­sid­er­a­tion. That has result­ed in mul­ti­ple paus­es dur­ing the course of the debate. (When the House paus­es floor pro­ceed­ings, the Speak­er declares the cham­ber tem­porar­i­ly at ease.)

Repub­li­cans know that Democ­rats have the votes to pass the leg­is­la­tion if it gets a final vote on the floor, which is why they’re des­per­ate to pre­vent the bill from get­ting to that point. They’re evi­dent­ly hop­ing to drag out these pro­ceed­ings long enough that Democ­rats just get dis­gust­ed and give up.

To pre­vail, the Democ­rats will have to out­last the Repub­li­cans. That could mean remain­ing on the floor well into the wee hours of the morning.

If that is what it takes, then so be it. Young Wash­ing­to­ni­ans need this legislation.

Repub­li­cans keep argu­ing that the peo­ple of the state are on their side in oppos­ing this leg­is­la­tion, cit­ing con­stituent emails and oth­er non­sci­en­tif­ic met­rics of pop­u­lar opin­ion. In floor debate tonight, Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Brad Klip­pert argued that Democ­rats should “lis­ten to the people”.

“What are the major­i­ty of the peo­ple say­ing?” Klip­pert asked rhetorically.

Well, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Klip­pert, a large major­i­ty of the peo­ple of this state sup­port this bill. We know because we asked nine hun­dred like­ly Wash­ing­ton vot­ers (a rather large sam­ple) for their views on EESB 5395 last autumn. And 67% of them told us they sup­port­ed the bill, with 49% say­ing they strong­ly sup­port­ed the bill.

Here’s the ques­tion we asked, and the respons­es we received:

QUESTION: The Wash­ing­ton State Super­in­ten­dent of Pub­lic Instruc­tion has asked the Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture to adopt leg­is­la­tion requir­ing all Wash­ing­ton state schools to teach inclu­sive, evi­dence-informed, sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly accu­rate, com­pre­hen­sive sex­u­al health edu­ca­tion, which must include “affir­ma­tive con­sent” cur­ricu­lum. Do you strong­ly sup­port, some­what sup­port, some­what oppose or strong­ly oppose this legislation?

ANSWERS:

• Sup­port: 67% 
  • Strong­ly Sup­port: 49%
  • Some­what Sup­port: 18%
• Oppose: 22%
  • Some­what Oppose:  7%
  • Strong­ly Oppose: 15%
• Not Sure: 11%

Our sur­vey of nine hun­dred like­ly 2019 Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers was in the field Octo­ber 22nd-23rd, 2019. The sur­vey used a blend­ed method­ol­o­gy with auto­mat­ed phone calls to land­lines and text mes­sages to cell phone only respon­dents. As men­tioned, the poll was con­duct­ed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling for NPI, and has a mar­gin of error of +/- 3.3% at the 95% con­fi­dence level.

As ESSB 5395’s prime spon­sor Sen­a­tor Claire Wil­son has said, knowl­edge is pow­er. Young peo­ple shouldn’t have to rely on savvy peers or the Inter­net to learn how to take care of them­selves, under­stand their bod­ies, and main­tain appro­pri­ate rela­tion­ships built on con­sent and hon­est communication.

As our research demon­strates, the vast major­i­ty of Wash­ing­ton vot­ers agree with Sen­a­tor Claire Wil­son and pro­po­nents of ESSB 5395.

The oppo­si­tion to this bill may be vocal and pas­sion­ate, but oppo­nents of this leg­is­la­tion do not speak for a major­i­ty of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans.

The Wash­ing­ton State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives must pass ESSB 5395.

We at NPI thank Speak­er Lau­rie Jink­ins for her com­mit­ment to the young peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton. Choos­ing to move for­ward with a floor debate in the face of the House Repub­li­cans’ des­per­ate tac­tics could­n’t have been an easy deci­sion. But a suc­cess­ful vote in sup­port of this bill will be a great out­come for Washingtonians.