Washington’s mandatory sex-education referendum tests conservative power at the ballot box – By Hannah Furfaro (Seattle Times) / Oct 17 2020
This spring, as the coronavirus spread across Washington, a team of stalwart volunteers set up signature-gathering drive-thrus outside churches and stores. Their aim: to put a referendum on the November ballot overturning a new law that required public schools to teach comprehensive sexual health education.
Thousands of voters streamed to these impromptu drive-thrus. By June, more than 264,000 people had signed, more than double the number needed for the referendum to qualify for the ballot.
But in the roughly four months since then, the campaign has moved mostly online. Those who favor the sex education law have heavily outspent the people who want to overturn it. But the pro-sex-education campaign says misinformation has flourished online, especially on social media message boards and websites.
In November, with Referendum 90, Washington voters will have a chance to decide whether the law — passed by lawmakers and signed by Gov. Jay Inslee in March, but never enacted — will take effect. It’s the first time nationwide that sex education has appeared on a statewide ballot, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The law was sponsored and largely approved by Democrats; most lawmakers who oppose it are Republicans.
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