The three citizen initiatives that received hearings in the Washington State Legislature last week are bound for floor votes after gaining committee approval on Friday, the Washington State Standard reported.
These are the measures that would lift restrictions on police vehicle pursuits, prohibit state and local income taxes and establish a “parents’ bill of rights” for the parents of K-12 school students.
Democratic support for the initiatives at the committee level was mixed. Republicans want to see the measures approved. The House and Senate are planning to vote on the initiatives on Monday.
The Standard has coverage of each initiative’s public hearing here:
Initiative to prohibit income taxes in Washington has its day in Olympia
WA lawmakers hear debate on parental rights initiative
Heywood testifies and tense exchanges at hearing on police pursuit initiative
Hey everyone- here comes MAGA, in the form of Brian Heywood, to liberate Washington state from all the “crazy” liberal policies we have all voted for. Book bans can’t be far away.
You voted for representatives that enacted these policies we didn’t get to vote on them. Many citizens are against some of these policies their representatives passed and have put forth these initiatives to correct them because their representatives aren’t listening to their constituents now we will get to vote on them isn’t that democracy?
Nobody is trying to ban books–just keep porn out of school libraries. And why would anyone NOT want to make our country great again? Please get your facts straight and think before you speak.
Whose definition of porn? What specific criteria? What about parents who don’t object – their voices don’t count?
And thank you, but America is great and pulling books that a few find objectionable isn’t going to somehow return us to that fictional yesterday when apparently America was perfect, great, and had no problems.
Having grown up in the apparently golden days of the 60’s, I can attest that some of the books then banned and hard to find saved my life. So repeat- who gets to decide, and in what grounds? We have recently seen an effort to shut down the only public library in a rural county because a handful of parents disapproved of some books. Make America Great – remove books? No, thank you!
Brenda speaks the truth when she says “ crazy liberal policies”. And every crazy liberal policy costs the populace of this state , ever more of our hard earned money directed towards socialist redistribution and furthering the regulatory state.
Good to know there are no crazy conservative policies and that all conservative candidates and policies are guided by wisdom and disinterested Statesmanship!
Sadly, I must disagree with you, Jennifer. There are lots of examples of people and organizations around the country attempting to ban books. Perhaps you watched the TV program “60 Minutes” last night (Sunday 3 March). A segment referred to a group attempting to ban 97 book titles in South Carolina. These are not attempts to “just keep porn out of school libraries.” Frankly I always have and continue to believe that school librarians, teachers and PTA members do a great job of ensuring that students read age-appropriate material.
Also, the phrase “Make America Great Again” implies that the country once was and is not now great. I reject that implication, no matter who makes it. I especially reject it from former President Trump, who from my point of view has done only one thing to improve the greatness of this country (Fasttrack the Covid 19 vaccine). I respect the opinions of many I know who think differently about him than I do. To answer the question you pose: I cannot agree to make our country great again because I think it is already a great country. One with a lot of problems to solve. One with people who have the capacity and government structures in place to solve them.
Michael, I’ve seen the 60 Minutes episode to which your refer, and the group is only trying to remove them from SCHOOL libraries only. I don’t agree with every book on the list, but some are just inappropriate.
I personally found multiple books in the EWHS Library that had illustrations and/or extremely explicit descriptions of sexual acts. Some of these are books that would have required a photo I.D. to view in the back corner of the 7-11 when I was in High School. Please go check out “Gender Queer” from the public library where it’s readily available. There are more, but this will get you started. I suspect most people haven’t personally looked at these books.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Without discourse and a free press, our country would not function.
So if we give up some of the freedom to read and consume whatever type of literature we choose or want we will be able to prevent things like homosexuality, gender identification confusion in young people, and sex activity in general? I would just like to know what these book ban folks are trying to prevent. In other words, if you are under the age of 18 and you don’t know about certain things; those things will never affect you personally or be a potential issue that you might have to address? Think back to your own childhood and how naturally curious you were when someone (usually a parent or older sibling) told you, you weren’t allowed to see something or read something for your own good. Ignorance seen as some sort of security has never made any sense to me but I’ve also never had children so maybe I just don’t understand the need for this censorship.
Clint, I take issue with your characterization of this as banning or censorship, since the books are readily available at the public library and Amazon. Yes, kids are naturally curious, and that’s a wonderful thing. But they’re curious about other things as well. Should we make alcohol available to them at school? Or drugs? How about guns? After all, where else where they learn about these things? The answer is the same in each case…their FAMILIES. You asked what this effort serves to prevent. This group of parents (some of whom are gay BTW) is trying to prevent the sexualization of kids and the normalization of underaged sex, specifically pediophilia. No 14 year old needs to see a detailed illustration of fellacio. I’m sure it’s harder to wrap your head around this issue if you don’t have children (though I applaud your effort!). But you were once a child. I’m betting you didn’t have access to Hustler Magazine in your school library.
Jennifer, fair enough and I can see your point of view better now. My thinking is that it would be much better to require that all sexually explicit literature (fiction or non-fiction) in school libraries should be located apart from the main stacks of the library where any parent could review them anytime they wanted and their child’s name could be put on a do not allow access list. My point is one parent should not be in the position of controlling the content they object to that another parent might actually desire their child to be exposed to in order to better cope with life (as they view life). My take on everything you mention (sex, guns, drugs, alcohol) in terms of banning them is that ignorance of what can happen surrounding them is far worse and more dangerous than having information about how to cope with or avoid them. I’d like to think that would be my desire for my children, if I had any. I don’t think the banning and prohibition of things ever does much good in terms of solving real problems or protecting children or adults. The things are still out there. It’s sort of like cheating at solitaire where you are only fooling yourself and what’s the point of that?
Jennifer, you are a difficult person to pin down conversationally. I thought you were talking about banning books in school libraries, since you wrote “school libraries”! I will not claim to know what is in every public library. I will stand with the judgement of certified librarians who judge what should and should not be on their shelves, with the caveat that I would disagree if they have Hustler on display in their magazine section. I know nothing of the title, “Gender Queer”. From what you write I am sure you and I would disagree about the placement of many books in both school and public libraries. I agree with you completely that parents are the ultimate arbitrators about what their children may read. They must not be the ones who decide what children in other families read, unless they volunteer their time to work with professionals.
I am not sure why you bring up having guns, drugs or alcohol in libraries. I would argue that a library should have books about these sorts of things. There again librarians would know the differences among books explaining the many types of explosive materials without having a copy of “Making Bombs for Dummies”. They might even have a book or two on how to brew beer without having jiggers of the stuff to sample.