Dear Members of the House,
The way in which SHB 1620 has been supported has been the most oppressive processes I have ever experienced. I was involved in the opposition of this bill since it was first introduced in 2023 and the “stakeholdering” that took place in the Fall of 2023. Myself, and one other non-funded[i] survivor, were invited to this stakeholdering process and every single one of our suggestions were removed or made null by other language. The foundation of Senate’s SHB 1620 is removing mandatory protections for children, and replacing those protections with flimsy “guidance.” We made these concerns clear to the sponsors. Despite sponsors having a year to communicate with us to address our concerns, 2024’s HB 2237 was refiled with nearly identical language as this year’s HB 1620.
The Senate, the whole Legislature, was lied to. The Sponsor of the companion bill told the Senate on April 2, 2025 “what we’re trying to do is… make it survivor focused and make sure we are curtailing discretion…” which is the exact opposite of what the bill does. In a letter from the President of the Superior Court Judges Association, the judges who testified for it, and from the plain reading of the bill, its clear that this bill is exactly about expanding discretion, not curtailing it. Discretion is currently being used to ignore domestic abuse.
Supporters using public funds to support abusers. HB 1620 began as SB 5205 in 2023 as a “parental rights” bill, which in family court, means putting parental rights over child safety: “parental rights” is an abuser advocate slogan in family court. The Superior Court Judges Association, SCJA, has been paying public funds to lobbyist McBride Public Affairs $9,561 per month since 2023 to push HB 1620, a bill that would remove protections for abused children in our custody statute.[ii] Us, the opposition, we have zero funds, only volunteer labor from parents who are just trying to protect our children. Some of the very same judges who wrote this bill for the 2023 session have issued egregious parenting plans, using the tactics our current statute does not explicitly allow, but the Senate’s SHB 1620 clearly directs the court to do: such as restricting the abused parent instead of the abusive parent because the court considered the abusive parent’s ego and reputation as more important than the child’s safety.[iii]
We have been silenced by orgs and sponsors of this bill in our effort to combat misinformation and oppose Senate’s SHB 1620. Last year the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, WSCADV, emailed at least 5 survivors in our network that they would not be allowed to attend their Advocacy Days if they intended to speak about HB 1620 (then HB 2237). WSCADV’s lobbyist told me, “Bad bills get passed all the time, just hope for some amendments.” This year, supporters of Senate’s SHB 1620 deleted the public comments that criticized their pro-HB 1620 social media posts.[iv] Supporters orchestrated a highly suspicious testifier to support their Senate’s SHB 1620’s harmful decision making provision.[v] WSCADV dispersed wildly false information in their take action notice regarding both the current statute and the bills to their 70 member orgs, creating mass opposition to our House ESHB 1620 in the Senate.[vi] The Senate Committee Chair deliberately ran out the clock for testifiers by giving testifiers 3 minutes[vii] to testify instead of 90 seconds, depriving 24 Washington residents from testifying to support the House’s Striker ESHB 1620.[viii] Due to the sponsors’ pressure, 4 of the 5 democrat Senate Committee members would not meet with us to discuss the bill before voting to revert the bill back to Senate’s SHB 1620. Both bill sponsors have tremendous influence as they sit on chairs of their committees and decide what bills get a hearing.
Where are these survivors they purport to represent??? We have been accused of being a very “vocal” group of dissenters: we’ve shown up in groups weekly in the capitol to testify and urge lawmakers to hear us, yet we have not seen one non-funded supporter in Olympia supporting their bill, none in the hallways, none that have testified in person.
Please do not concur or compromise with Senate’s SHB 1620. Even a compromise would leave far too many loopholes that abusers can exploit. We support the House Striker ESHB 1620 that passed 86-7. We have children’s lives at stake. Thank you for reading.
Shira Cole
[i] I’m using this term “non-funded” because most of the orgs who are supporting this bill are members of WSCADV who is the main lobbying arm for ~70 domestic violence organizations, per their 990 filing they provide “resources… to its approximately 70 member organizations.” (They do not actually provide support for domestic abuse survivors.) It should be acknowledged that they hold a tremendous amount of power over these DV orgs, because, for example last year, they lobbied for a 50 million dollar package for these domestic violence organizations, if these organizations oppose WSCADV they risk losing funding. https://wscadv.org/projects/public-policy/state-legislative-advocacy/
[ii] https://accesshub.pdc.wa.gov/node/68980
[iii] The House Striker ESHB 1620, removed abusive use of conflict. The very judge who wrote this bill leading up to the 2023 session has used that label to justify putting the abused parent on supervised visitation instead of the abusive parent because it was more important to the judge that the abusive parent’s reputation was not tarnished, than protecting the child from abuse. Two other judges, involved in promoting this bill, have issued similarly egregious orders that silenced victims and placed children with abusive parents.
[iv]SVLC’s promotion of HB 1620: https://www.instagram.com/p/DFTqH1YysMm/?img_index=1. At least 4 comments were deleted that criticized the bill, and then commenting was turned off, but these were the 2 we have records of.
[v] This testifier stated she supported the language of the bill that would remove the sole-decision making provision in her parenting plan and that she wanted to be ordered to co-parenting with her ex. First, she claims that in her case it was based on “old allegations of DV” but “no findings’, which is misleading because the statute clearly requires a finding, not an allegation of domestic violence to initiate sole-decision making, which further casts doubt on whether her testimony is based on a real story. Second, we have NEVER heard of a survivor who wanted to remove their award of sole-decision making. Third, the statute does not prohibit co-parenting if the survivor choses it, the statute states “shall not require mutual decision making…” the statute does not say “shall not allow mutual decision making,” meaning it’s the person with sole-decision making who can chose whether to involve the other parent in decision making or not. Link to this testimony: https://www.tvw.org/watch/?clientID=9375922947&eventID=2025011571&startStreamAt=4030&stopStreamAt=4122
[vi] This flier from WSCADV, “Sign in Con” was in opposition to our House Striker. Point 1: that our House Striker will "Eliminate protections against abusive use of conflict…” and Point 4: that our House Striker will “Give abusive individuals more power to harass survivors through the courts.” WSCADV clearly doesn’t understand the law because Abusive Litigation is still intact in the 26.51 chapter. Point 2: that it will “Create confusion in the courts by inconsistently defining key terms,” is a false and weak argument as the term is defined. Point 3: that the House Striker will “Force survivors into court to resolve every dispute with someone causing them harm,” is false, it keeps the statute’s language but further protects survivors by stating that decision making goes to the abuse survivor and not the abuser which their bill was silent on. Finally Point 5: the House Striker does not “Block courts from considering key evidence of abuse,” the House Striker provides guides, in addition to the current definition of domestic violence, and removes factors that are used to downplay abuse.
[vii] Chair conceding there were so many testifiers, but gives them 3 minutes each: https://tvw.org/video/senate-law-justice-2025031330/?eventID=2025031330
[viii] This bill report is confusing because it is for the House’s version of HB 1620, which is the bill we support. But as you can see from this bill report, 24 Washington residents did not get to testify who signed into testify to support the House HB 1620, whereas only maybe 3 Washington residents who didn’t get to testify were opposed to the House HB 1620.