‘A complete and utter lie’: Rep. Couture fires back at Gov. Ferguson’s claim that IL26-001 weakens parents’ rights

Washington Rep. Travis Couture joined “The Jake and Spike Show” to respond to Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson’s recent press conference opposing IL26-001, the Parental Rights Initiative, in which Ferguson claimed it “actually weakens existing laws by removing parents’ rights.”

Ferguson’s claims were guided specifically toward changing the threshold for when parents are notified if their child is a crime victim at school.

Couture, who drafted the notification language in the current law, rejected that argument outright and accused the governor of using fear tactics to mislead voters.

KIRO host Jake Skorheim played audio of Ferguson’s remarks and asked how someone with Ferguson’s legal background, a former attorney general for 12 years, could characterize a parental rights initiative as taking away parents’ rights. Couture called Ferguson’s claims flatly untrue.

“It’s pure sophistry. It’s a complete and utter lie,” Couture added. “Just read the initiative itself. It has a whole section in there that says immediate notification of parents if their child has been a part of any criminal action, including a sexual assault by staff in their school.”

The measure, brought forward by Let’s Go Washington, was certified in January after gathering more than 418,000 signatures. It would restore parents’ access to student records within 10 business days instead of 45, re-establish notification rights before a child receives medical or mental health services, and require immediate parental notification if a criminal action is “deemed” to have been committed against their child.

Couture says the ‘alleged’ v. ‘deemed’ distinction carries no legal weight

IL26-001 would restore the original text of the Parents’ Bill of Rights as passed nearly unanimously by the legislature in 2024, before Democrats amended key provisions with House Bill 1296 in 2025.

Couture pointed out that the same language sailed through both legislative chambers in 2024 with bipartisan support, and that Democrats on the House floor at the time said they didn’t view it as substantially changing existing law.

“Then they went and passed a bill to erase certain parts of it,” he said. “One of the parts that they wanted to erase was the immediate notification of parents if your child is sexually assaulted by staff at their school.”

KIRO fill-in host Greg Tomlin framed the crux of Ferguson’s argument for Couture to respond to directly: current law uses the word “alleged” to trigger parental notification, while IL26-001 uses the word “deemed,” and the governor argues that could create a higher threshold before parents are told.

“As a matter of fact, I’m the one who drafted the amendment in the current law,” Couture said. “There is no reasonable difference. I mean, there is a difference between the words alleged and deemed, but there is no legal difference there.”

He added that the “deemed” language is identical to what the legislature passed nearly unanimously in 2024 and mirrors the law in Louisiana, where “they’ve never had one problem with this law.”

“Is the governor trying to say that if a child comes up to the principal at school and says, ‘My teacher raped me,’ that they could sit there and say, ‘Oh, well, I don’t deem that as a crime’? Of course you do. Like, that’s absurd,” Couture said.

Greg said Ferguson’s framing amounts to a concession that proponents of I-001 are winning the argument.

“This sound bite from Bob Ferguson is almost a concession that proponents of I-001 are winning the language battle, because he’s saying, ‘We’re not the ones who want to weaken parents’ rights, you’re the ones who want to weaken parents’ rights!'” Greg said.

“People don’t like lawyers,” Greg added. “It’s legal parsing in an attempt to obfuscate the bigger point.”

Jake said Ferguson’s approach may still be effective, even if it’s not a good-faith argument.

“He’s probably going to be more effective doing something like that than they’re going to be making the good-faith argument for the reason they actually want the initiative to fail,” Jake said.

‘Vote yes for parents’ rights. Vote no for stranger danger.’

Jake argued that the debate itself reveals how far the conversation has drifted from common sense.

“The vast majority of people are going to agree that parents should have access to what’s happening in their kids’ lives,” Jake said. “They have more interest in that kid’s well-being than the schools could ever possibly hope to have, no matter what the parent may or may not agree with the child’s life choices as they get older.”

Couture said the opposition’s real concern is ideological, not about safety.

“The No campaign is about protecting kids for ideological purposes,” Couture said. “What they think is abuse is not affirming your pronouns. That’s what they think abuse is.”

Couture then pivoted to what he called hypocrisy from opponents who claim to be protecting children. Couture, who has been one of the legislature’s most vocal critics of the Keeping Families Together Act, said many of the same lawmakers fighting I-001 have also blocked reform of the 2021 law that critics said leaves children trapped in homes with parents who are actively using hard drugs like fentanyl.

Child welfare deaths and critical injuries in Washington spiked to 58 incidents in 2025, about half tied to opioids, before dropping in early 2026.

“They are behind a state law that leaves kids in their homes to die with biological parents who are actively using hard drugs like fentanyl, and we’ve had a skyrocketing amount of child deaths because the state negligently allows that abuse and neglect,” Couture said.

“It’s crazy we’re even having this conversation, that this is even a thing that people need to try to fight for,” Jake said.

Couture closed with the same message he’s been delivering across social media and at rallies in Olympia: “Vote yes for parents’ rights and vote no for stranger danger.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to “The Jake and Spike Show” weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio 97.3