It’s spring and this year’s crop of ballot measures from Republican millionaire hedge fund manager, Trump donor, and Let’s Go Washington founder Brian Heywood are (almost) in bloom. And God do they stink.

Heywood has filed initiatives to: Restore the Parent’s Bill of Rights that Democrats amended this year, limit property taxes, ban trans girls from school sports and use more state money for homeschooling, which is just another way to defund public education. It must be nice having the money for all this. (Someone should tax the rich about it). Let’s Go Washington didn’t respond to a request for an interview.

Soon enough, Heywood’s folks will be out on the street asking for your signature ahead of the July 3 deadline. They’ll need to collect 308,011 valid signatures from Washingtonians—or 8 percent of the total votes cast in the last gubernatorial election—for each depraved initiative to make it on the ballot. When you encounter them, do yourself and your neighbors a favor. Back away slowly.

That Pesky Parents Bill of Rights

Earlier this year, the Legislature amended the so-called Parents’ Bill of Rights to make it compliant with state law. Heywood’s measure would undo that work, and reinstate I-2081 as it passed last year.

The notion that this debate has ever been about rights at all is a trap.

As I wrote last year after speaking to a dozen experts and advocates on background, Heywood’s initial Parent’s Bill of Rights did not seem worth the paper it was printed on. Nor was it original. It was just a copycat of a Louisiana bill from 2014, slapped lazily on the Revised Code of Washington, which is like substituting the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle with a Lincoln Log.

As a result, most of the “added” protections were redundant—such as the already established rights to a kid’s complete education record, to observe classes, or to know ahead of time what medications kids are being given—and the ones that weren’t conflicted with state law. Some provisions even posed threats to kids and schools.

For example, the measure allowed parents to access school counselling records, including the private notes or memory aides made during sessions with their children. Advocates worried gay or trans kids in homophobic households might stay silent if there was even a ghost of a chance their parents could find out.

The measure was also likely to waste educators’ time by burying them in paperwork. As written, schools had only 10 business days to provide a full, free copy of a child's education record. And before any lessons on “all topics associated with sexual activity,” the school would have to notify parents and give them the chance to opt out. “Associated” could be interpreted broadly, just ask Romeo and Juliet, or any gay historical figure. The work of sending and processing those requests would fall on teachers and staff, taking time away from teaching  and possibly, advocates feared, chilling lessons about queerness.

As a strategic move last year, the Legislature passed Heywood’s measure. Some early internal polling data, sources say, suggested voters may approve it, and if that happened Democrats couldn’t touch it for two potentially chaotic years. Passing the measure let them defang it sooner.

House Bill 1296, now on Governor Bob Ferguson’s desk, did that and more. It added explicit protections for students who are trans, immigrants, homeless and neurodivergent; and gave schools more time to answer requests for education records.

Additionally, education records could no longer include protected medical information about sexual and mental health, or the private notes of teachers and counselors. Under federal law, parents already had the right to be notified (and opt out of surveys or analyses about things like sexual behavior, religion, politics or income, but the only instruction they can skip is sex-ed (as was already their right).

Parents retained the right to be notified immediately if their child was the victim of a crime at school, or if law enforcement detained or questioned their child. The bill also sets up a new process for the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to take and investigate complaints of districts willfully breaking state laws that protect students from discrimination, bullying, and the use of restraint and isolation.

Chris Reykdal, the state’s superintendent of public instruction, thought the Legislature cleared up parents’ rights quite nicely. It’s important to him that Washington make its civil rights framework clear so the Trump administration can’t manipulate them via executive order (a few days after we chatted with Reykdal, Trump launched an investigation into OSPI over protections for trans kids).

Reykdal even agrees that it’s not a school’s job to raise kids. Setting policy that asks schools to expose a kid’s sexuality or identity seems to him “so over the top government, that I can’t believe we aren’t calling out conservatives for what this really is.”

“It fascinates me how much they want school now to play de facto cop for them,” he says.

The debate over HB 1296 was one of the most contentious, and personally upsetting, this session, says the bill’s co-sponsor Rep. Nicole Macri (D-43). It’s been hard for her to hear what parents and students felt the Parents’ Bill of Rights said about their “humanity and family.”

“It’s designed to create panic and fear, but at the expense of kids who are vulnerable,” she says.

Heywood can’t start collecting signatures to repeal HB 1296 until Ferguson signs the bill.

A Ban on Trans Girls Playing Sports

Heywood has submitted two versions of a ban on trans girls in girls sports.

One, which he wants to name to the “Save Our Girls’ Sports Act,” would force the non-profit body that regulates K-12 sports in Washington State, the Washington State Athletics Association (WIAA), and non-member school districts to adopt bans.

A second, titled “Defending Equity in Interscholastic Sports,” imposes the same ban but sets a procedure for how to settle a “dispute” over a kid’s sex. Any athlete suspected of being trans, including cis kids, would have to prove their eligibility with a physical performed by their doctor. This physical could include a genital examination, as well as hormonal and genetic testing.

Some of this could change. The state hasn’t assigned these measures a number yet, which means the final text has not yet been submitted, according to a spokesperson from the Washington Secretary of State’s Office.

This one warrants a little history. Once upon a time, years before MAGA Republicans made an issue of trans girls in sports, the WIAA put a first-of-its-kind policy on the books that let trans kids play on teams that aligned with their gender. Aidan Key, Executive Director of Gender Diversity, helped write the 2008 rules, which also established a review committee to address problems as they arose.

In 10 years, only one did, Key says. A competing school challenged a trans girl’s eligibility for track, which she kept with the full support of her team. The WIAA later struck the review process. If schools backed an athlete’s eligibility, they were eligible.

Despite what Republicans say, putting trans girls and cis girls in the same league is not like a game of rock paper scissors where the trans girl always wins. But when a trans girl does win, it’s presumed her transness is the reason why. Last year, a trans runner from Spokane Valley, won the 2A Girls 400-meter run in Tacoma, the first known trans athlete to win a state championship in Washington. People booed from the stands; someone shouted that she wasn’t a girl.

Since her victory, President Donald Trump has issued an executive order to ban trans kids from sports. In March, the federal government launched a Title IX investigation into Tumwater School District for allowing a transgender girl to play basketball. Later that month, the Kennewick School Board filed a federal Title IX complaint against Washington, Reykdal and the WIAA, requesting “URGENT federal intervention” over the state’s “discriminatory” policy.

Washington has, give or take, 250,000 student athletes. Of those, between 5 and 20 are trans, according to estimates from Key and state officials. Since 2008, Key says he’s seen no evidence that trans girls are, on average, outperforming their cis peers. The WIAA says it does not actively keep track of trans kids' times and scores and has no hard data to share.

“All of those main fears are not coming to fruition, but nobody knows that,” Key says. “Nobody knows that information. What I do all the time in my educational work, I share that with coaches, or athletic directors or superintendents and say–this is the reality.”

In the case of the track runner whose eligibility was challenged by another school, she ranked in the mid-30s statewide. In other words, a good runner, but more than 30 cis girls could “kick her butt,” Key says. He likes that story. Washington state and the WIAA could make the argument that nearly 20 years of experience show fairness and inclusion are not mutually exclusive. But that’s not the argument being made.

Last month, the WIAA held a vote on two amendments to its trans athlete policy. The first sought to ban trans girls from girls sports; the second to establish an open league for trans athletes and the cis people who wanted to compete against them. A couple problems: There aren’t enough trans athletes for a league, and it’s against the law to keep them out of existing ones. The Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD) explicitly protects trans people in places of public accommodation, including schools. Neither passed, and the WIAA made clear that if they had, its policy wouldn’t change unless state law also changed. 

A person close to a potential opposition campaign said this measure on trans girls is more likely to qualify for the ballot than anti-trans bathroom bans of years past, I-1515 and I-1552.

Who needs a public education when you can just privatize it?

Over here in our sweet, little blue state bubble, we’ve been mostly insulated from the conservative pushes to weaken and privatize the public school system that are happening in red states. Not anymore! Heywood wants to make sure we aren’t missing out on the hell that is living in other places. With his help, we too could be mired in the muck that is the post-pandemic destruction of (and in-the-trenches culture war waging inside) K-12 public education.

Heywood wants to bring an educational savings account (ESA) to Washington to pay out “scholarships” to families who choose to homeschool or put their kids in private schools. In states where this kind of legislation has passed, states pay thousands of dollars in unregulated money to these families. It’s all about improving parental choice—right?

“Whatever you call it, Heywood’s proposals are voucher schemes meant to drain funds from public school students,” Julie Popper, a spokesperson for the Washington Education Association said.

If Heywood’s initiatives to expand parental choice and create this ESA go forward, he envisions a world where this fund receives revenue from the legislature, the B&O tax credit, “so businesses can provide direct support to students.” Parents will receive a debit card to only spend on schooling-related expenses.

“We should all be disturbed when a corporation says, ‘I don't want to pay taxes,’” Superintendent of Washington School Chris Reykdal said. “And then says, ‘When I do pay, instead of giving it to our constitutional legislature to make priority out of it, I get to decide what I want it to go for.’ And that's what happens in these scholarship funds. Instead of paying to the general fund—which we get 42% of for K-12—they get to put it into a scholarship fund and then call all their friends and say, ‘Go tap my money for yourself to keep running your private school.’”

Aside from the funding the ESA would pickpocket from public schools at a time when our public schools are facing a $13 billion budget deficit in 2025, schools would also lose revenue by losing kids to the privatized school system. Public schools earn revenue based on headcount.

“At a time when our public school students are going without needed learning and supports because of insufficient funding, we cannot afford to send taxpayer dollars to voucher schemes,” Popper said. 

Plus, unlike with funding for public schools, there is little to no oversight for these funds. Parents in Arizona abused the state’s ESA and used the money to spend over $700,000 on clothing and makeup. Not only that, but these private institutions are regulation black boxes.

“They want to hand taxpayer money over to systems that don't test,” Reykdal said. “They don't have to have certified teachers. They don't have to have any of the frameworks that keep kids safe and protected. Do not buy into the ‘public schools aren't performing on some standardized tests, and therefore these ones should get money’ [line].”

From Reykdal’s perspective, Heywood’s initiatives around homeschooling are part of the national conservative agenda to first vilify public schools and then eviscerate them.

“They don't really value public education, and that's why they're willing to privatize it, dismantle it,” Reykdal said. “I actually think we need a strong public education system funded by the public, accountable to the public, with locally-elected school boards. And if you want something different, that's okay. That's why you have private options and private rights. Go to private school. We have some great systems. You need to pay out of pocket for that.”

"It’s unfair to ask us super rich people to keep paying taxes."

This part is cut and dry. It's a classic wealthy person referendum on the system when the system maybe isn’t benefiting them in all the ways they want. Heywood has two draft initiatives about property taxes that change how property is valued. In one, he wants to limit annual property tax increases to 0.5 percent. They are currently capped at a 1 percent increase. In his other initiative, Heywood wants all property to be “valued at 50 percent of its true and fair value in money and assessed on the same basis unless specifically provided otherwise by law.”

As a state with an upside down, fucked up taxed system, we depend on property taxes for funding everything from fire protection and libraries to parks and public schools. Reducing that pot of money in any capacity would have serious consequences for the state.

“They're both dangerous initiatives that would hamstring communities' ability to fund basic services,” said Treasure Mackley, the executive director of Invest in Washington Now.

The timing of these initiatives is particularly evil, too. They come at a time when life has never been more expensive, thanks in large part to the freaks in control of the federal government.

“Right now, where we're seeing communities across the state are really struggling to be able to fund the services that they need and these initiatives would make that problem even worse,” Mackley said.

While the initiatives have yet to be officially approved to be on the ballot, Mackley is confident if voters had a say on these, voters would vote them down the way they rejected Heywood’s conservative agenda last year.

“Hayward came on to the scene a couple of years ago as a person who really wanted to put a stake down. And he's continuing to try and use his millions and millions of dollars to try and shape policy here in Washington State,” Mackley said. “The voters saw through it last time, and I think I'll see through it again.”