We could have protected women and children from abuse. WA Dems wouldn’t hear my bill | Opinion

Early in the 2024 legislative session, domestic violence survivors, advocates and I held a news conference outlining the numerous stark problems in the state’s family courts. As I’ve experienced firsthand trying to help a family member stuck in this abusive system, the state is doing anything but addressing the problem.

This year, we had a chance to make significant progress and unlock hundreds of thousands of federal dollars. Instead, the Democratic majority that purports to protect women failed miserably and decided to close ranks to protect special interests, lawyers and judges at the expense of women and children.

I introduced a package of bills aimed at training judges, providing more protections for abuse victims — mostly women and children — and set improved standards for evidence and procedures in family court. One of the bills, Senate Bill 5879, known as Kayden’s Law, would have made Washington eligible for substantial federal funding to train judges and restrict unproven, unsafe treatments that force children to be with a potentially dangerous parent.

Senate Democratic leaders, however, were disinterested in advancing Kayden’s Law or other proposals in favor of promoting legislation in the House as the vehicle to address concerns of domestic violence survivors. Sadly, the House legislation failed to even get out of the Democrat-controlled House committee. Their “reform” bill did nothing to help survivors of domestic abuse or children.

The sad reality is that family courts are making women with children homeless. Here’s a scenario playing out daily in family court:

A couple is separating, and their primary residence is granted to the primary care giver, usually the woman. Sounds great. She and the kids get the house and all that’s needed is to write a check to the ex-spouse for half of the equity. The bad news? She can’t afford the mortgage payments and the home must be sold to satisfy payment before it goes to foreclosure. There is no money to get it “fixed up” to sell and they must sell in a hurry, all while trying to find a place for her and the children to live.

The result? She and the kids are homeless, the ex-spouse gets tens of thousands of dollars, and the court that made the woman and kids homeless now takes the children taken away and gives them to an abusive ex-spouse.

This scenario must stop.

So, who would want to continue this horrible practice? Bar Association lawyers. These professional associations put the screws to Democratic leaders, effectively killing the effort to solve at least part of the problem, the crux of which is the tension between granting judges even more discretion and the outcomes for vulnerable people who are unable to appeal dangerous decisions from the bench.

While survivors, national experts and advocates wanted to provide more training to recognize subtle forms of psychological abuse and financial resources, professional associations and special interests worked behind the scenes to promote their agenda of more discretion. More discretion means less opportunity to contest a judge’s decisions, denying the ability to appeal a bad decision.

National experts voiced their support of my proposals, especially Kayden’s law, named after an 8-year-old child brutally killed by an abusive ex-spouse to get back at his wife. A leading expert at the National Family Violence Law Center at George Washington University, who helped author the landmark federal legislation, Kayden’s Law, part of the 2022 Violence Against Women Act said, “Kayden’s law is a common-sense solution to some of the most intransigent problems in family courts.”

Powerful interests in the Legislature care more about what lawyers want than the safety of our children and victims of domestic abuse. Susan Powell’s parents, Chuck and Judy Cox, joined the news conference to lend their support to Kayden’s Law. Their grandchildren and daughter were victims of a tragic domestic violence dispute that resulted in the murder of their daughter and the children by their abusive father. The Coxes won a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against the state of Washington for negligence resulting from the kinds of failings in family courts that my proposals would address.

As Mr. Cox noted, “I believe that had we had something like Kayden’s Law, things would be very different for our family. Judges need to be trained properly.”

Sadly, it won’t happen this year and unless those in charge can throw off the stranglehold of special interests, we’ll see more tragedies like those suffered by the Cox family.

I don’t want to see another tragedy before the Legislature finally votes to protect women and children from abuse or even death.

Sen. Phil Fortunato is an Auburn Republican and represents the 31st Legislative District., which includes parts of Pierce and King counties.

This story was originally published March 6, 2024 at 5:00 AM.