The Predator Bill Flaunted as “DV Survivor Bill”
HB 2237 (2024) evolved from SB 5205 (2023). In 2023 dv survivors in family court referred to this bill as the “The Predator Bill”. In 2023’s legislative session, survivors were told that the Superior Court Judge’s Association wanted to make all mandatory protections in RCW 26.09.191 discretionary, creating significant additional hurdles for dv survivor parents and children to reach safety, and opening the door to unending abuser litigation. Look closely at the two analysis of these bills showing the same harms of SB 5205 are still in HB 2237.
For further analysis see: Family Violence Appellate Project’s (FVAP) Analysis Strongly Opposing HB 2237, and Misleading Promotion of HB 2237)
History of SB 5205: If you want to dive deep into the history: Original Bill Language, 5205’s Page, (has links to summary and videos of hearings), see Attorney One Pager Analysis of SB 5205. (for more in depth analysis of these prior bills, see: Attorney Analysis of SB 5205 and also, PAYES’ Analysis of SB 5205, and PAYES’ Sign on Letter Against SB 5205).
General Domestic Violence Organizations (DV Orgs) Not Representing Family Court Survivors
All four organizations that specialize in both family law and domestic abuse adamantly oppose HB 2237. There are a few organizations who specialize in just domestic abuse when it comes to family court. The authority on this topic in Washington State is Family Violence Appellate Project, who are the only legal resource in Washington State with expertise on correcting dangerous judicial family court orders using the law, data and research. Next in experience and knowledge is Jewish Family Service (JFS), Her Harbor and People Advancing Youth Equity and Safety. When our position was made clear in December 2023 against HB 2237, instead of meeting with other DV Orgs so everyone could go line by line the bill, supporters of HB 2237 ghosted these four organizations over the holiday break, and instead of trying to come to an understanding of the parts of the bill we could agree on, direct opposition and resistance to working together is what happened. The DV Orgs who signed in to support this law do not specialize in both family law and domestic abuse.
Only one of these HB 2237 supporting DV Orgs was involved in editing the final draft, Sexual Violence Law Center. Their promotion of this law highlights the less effective good parts of the bill and glosses over the more harmful parts. It’s a well known tactic to put ineffective “good” language that appeals to marginalized groups of people, to pass effective and powerful, yet discreet, harmful language benefitting privileged people in legislation. Do not fall for this trap.
Is a Coalition that relies on membership dues for its revenue, and lobbies in turn for those members, really that much different than a business trade association? Approximately 70 community based domestic violence service agencies use Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence (WSCADV) services for “training,” “support,” and to communicate their interests for policy and funding to lawmakers. WSCADV operates similar to a trade association whereby the membership fees of their members provide the majority of their revenue, for example in 2022, out of its $3.6M revenue, $2.6M was from membership fees and other services to these service agencies. WSCADV communicates with lawmakers sometimes collectively for the budget for all or most of these 70 agencies.
WSCADV has too much power for its lack of incentives against corruption, lack of oversight and lack of expertise in family court. This relationship WSCADV has with its members puts tremendous power inside of WSCADV, as they have the power to sign on against budget requests for organizations or projects they don’t like (see their Ask to Take Action Against SB 1715), in support for organizations or projects they do like (See Crime Victim Request for 2023), and silent on policy where they stand with the prevailing proponents (In response to dv survivors in family court that WSCADV sign on against SB 5205 in a public letter, WSCADV wrote “WACADV will not be signing on to this letter, nor are we taking a public position to oppose this bill.”). This relationship with its members increases its power twofold as WSCADV’s take action requests to support HB 2237 go out to these 70 Agencies, and anyone subscribed to their newsletter. After speaking with one agency who signed on PRO to HB 2237, we learned they knew actually very little about the bill. Another agency stated “its not that bad,” in defense of acquiescing to WSCADV’s request to sign in PRO. Why would DV orgs sign on to bills they know little about?
DV Advocate or Lobbying Arm? Meanwhile Kayden’s Law, SB 5879 / HB 2010, which is what survivors want, see , was denied a hearing. In response to Q13 Fox’s Inquiry as to why, Senator Dhingra, said that the HB 2237’s bill sponsor, “has been working closely with the judges and [WSCADV] for a year on a bill on this issue - HB 2237…” After the January, 17, 2024 hearing, we asked WSCADV why they are advocating for a bill they had no knowledge or involvement in, they confirmed, “this isn’t our bill.” If its not WSCADV’s bill, then what are they doing that’s considered “working closely” with the bill sponsor?
Should DV Orgs be elevating the voices of DV survivors, or should DV survivors be elevating the voices of DV Orgs? WSCADV subscribers were invited to come to the capitol the week of January 22, 2024 for Domestic Violence Advocacy Days (DVAD) to meet with their lawmakers to promote WSCADV’s bills. WSCADV wrote to at least three members who opposed HB 2237 that “If you plan to attend, we ask that you do not discuss other bills (including SB 5205 or HB 2237) outside of the list of bills we set forward in any DVAD legislative appointment…”
Why is WSCADV’s Bill Tracker page, pushing for HB 2237, (while like SVLC’s flier, also only highlighting the marginally effective good parts, omitting the harmful parts), and not mentioning Kayden’s Law HB 2010 / SB 5879 at all? It’s a nationwide known fact that every family law and dv survivor is trying to pass Kayden’s Law in their state, see nationwide groups National Safe Parents Organization and One Mom’s Battle, who were both prepared to testify against HB 2237 but were cut off due to time limitations on the hearing.
Family Law is Driving Domestic Abuse. While WSCADV advances DV survivors interests when not involved in family law, WSCADV has told at least two of the participants in DVAD, where they host meetings with lawmakers in Olympia with dv survivors, have been told that they are the only constituents who have signed up in their district and both those two constituents oppose HB 2237. What does this mean? This is a sign that family court is the vessel forcing victims into continued abuse and that WSCADV needs to stop ignoring DV survivors in family court. Theres a growing suspicion among the dv survivor community in family court that policy is designed to increase demand for DV services by further entrenching dv survivors in family court with abusers.
In Response to Claims this is “Survivor Friendly”
Supporters of this bill point to weak survivor-friendly language, to justify the removing very harmful protections in the statute. “Abusive Use of Conflict” which is synonymous with Parental Alienation, which is used to counter valid claims of child abuse, is slightly clarified, but still in its definition includes the all inclusive term “This includes, but is not limited to…” tag line creating a vague application, and vague laws create arbitrary enforcement. “Protective Actions” is a great add to this bill, but no where sufficient to justify the rest of the bills harms.
Supporters imply that the opposition wants no change to RCW 26.09.191, not true, we want more careful change, and we also want it sooner than later. We want substantially more work, input, real research, discussion to make a better change to RCW 26.09.191, and we are willing to work on something that can be ready by 2025.
This “clean up” bill makes more of a mess, and complicated statutes are always construed against less financed party. This takes a clear statute (that is only complicated because the middle of the statute takes the time to carefully define what previous crimes and scenarios are dispositive of sexual abuse limitations), and sprinkles the domestic violence findings applications across 8 different paragraphs, whereas the current statute domestic violence is only addressed in two simple paragraphs.
Supporters of this bill attempt to solve the problem of incorrect findings of domestic violence with a harmful solution of judicial discretion. Supporters of this bill also say that this bill stops the criminalization of survivors, as many survivors are incorrectly labeled with a history of domestic violence. The current law is silent when both parents have dv findings, and sometimes the person who has a dv finding is actually the victim. HB 2237 solves false DV findings by giving untrained judges discretion to apply false dv findings however they want instead of requiring trained judges to look at reliable evidence. In contrast, Kayden’s Law, HB 2010 / SB 5879, requires all court professionals to take training in domestic violence and child abuse, requires anyone testifying about domestic violence and child abuse to be experts. This would improve incorrect DV findings. More discussion is required to solve cases where both parents have DV findings.
Supporters of this bill falsely claim that in cases of domestic violence the “courts may allow joint decision making in limited circumstances” of domestic violence. But this actually isn’t limited at all, the bill instead says that the court may allow joint decision making based on the vague interpretation on what is “contrary to the child’s best interest” (section 6b, page 15), this same standard is what is used to justify removing a child from a safe parent.
Supporters of this bill say it creates “uniformity for how courts balance findings against both parents,” but the bill instead gives instructions to the court on how to give equal or more weight to discretionary findings (such as parental alienation) versus mandatory findings (such as child abuse). The current statute is NOT silent on how to address this, the current statute mandates mandatory findings, and says discretionary findings are optional—and that any deviation must have clear express findings. The statute does not direct, suggest or allow for discretionary factors to have more weight than mandatory ones. The bill creates detailed instructions on how to weigh discretionary findings more heavily than mandatory ones (Section 7b, page 16). What this will create is debunked non-science claims of “Parental Alienation”, which is referred to as “Abusive Use of Conflict” as a discretionary finding, being weighted more than valid claims of child abuse and domestic violence. They are right, it will create uniformity, but the uniformity will only be in how abusers will gain custody across the state with cross claims of Parental Alienation. Anyone in family law knows that Parental Alienation, denounced by United Nations here, claims are effective weapons of abusers to persuade the court that domestic abuse did not happen, and HB 2237 further strengthens Parental Alienation claims.
Supporters of this bill claim it gives guidelines and prohibitions to follow during supervised visitation and a process to file an ex parte order to stop visitation. Ex parte orders are the financed abusers best friend as it enables a party to drag the other party back to court on a whim. This is already a power of either party, and this language leads the court to believe that this is the only, or priority, reason to request an ex parte order. This language is misleading, and not necessary.
Supporters of this bill claim it was written by survivors, this is so blatantly false. After our own outreach we concluded that this is far what survivors want. Survivors wanted CPS reform, GAL reform, Judicial Training in DV/abuse, only qualified experts to testify on DV/abuse, heightened standards of what “emotional impairment”, removal of “abusive use of conflict,” better analysis of what parent is the perpetrator, and heightened consideration on maintaining primary caregiver relationship. This was the piece used to justify its changes: Superior Court Judge’s Association’s HB 2237 Flier.
Supporters of this bill falsely claim the state of family court is so bad, this is the fastest solution we have. No, the best solution we have at our finger tips is Kaydens Law, HB 2010 / SB 5879.
The Superior Court Judges Association justification for the bill was said to be to just address rare 4 scenarios in family court, this bill instead creates widespread changes across family court affecting everyone. Please see Jennifer Forbes SCJA’s Letter pointing out the 4 scenarios.
There is significant bias against mothers in family court. Many required professional trainings are dominated by professionals that push these professionals to use Alienation to counter valid claims of domestic abuse. See Kitsap Legal Services Title 26 Recertification Training/CLE GAL Training from May 18, 2023, and in AFCC’s Training on Fundamentals of Conducting Parenting Plan Evaluations.