State Senator Noel Frame’s (36th Legislative District – Seattle) SB5229 was signed by Gov. Inslee this session. The bill expands the range of economic development projects that can be funded by the state’s Community Economic Revitalization Board (CERB), and ensures that CERB reports to the Legislature on the share of projects that use businesses owned by people of color, women and veterans. “We need to make sure that people in every corner of Washington can build the infrastructure it takes for their economy to grow, businesses to succeed, and family-wage jobs to flourish,” said Frame.
Another proposal by Frame was a compromise before Washington’s legislative session ended. The bill, which would have added clergy to the state’s list of mandatory reporters of child abuse or neglect, hit a wall. A majority of state senators and Catholic lobbyists wanted an exemption for priests if they learned of abuse or neglect in confession.
Senator Frame’s amendment gave clergy a duty to tell law enforcement if they believed a child was at imminent risk of abuse informed by a confession without the information they were told during the confession.
“We felt like this walked an appropriate line of not reporting what one heard in confession, but rather, reporting a belief of harm likely to happen,” Frame said.
Mario Villanueva, executive director of the Washington State Catholic Conference, told Frame in an email obtained by InvestigateWest that the compromise was, “Something we could not accept.”
That effectively killed the bill. Washington is one of seven states that does not list clergy as mandatory reporters. Washington doesn’t list clergy as mandated reporters but grants clergy-penitent privilege, though it’s limited to pastoral communications. There have been numerous tries to add clergy as mandated reporters, and they’ve all failed.
The Associated Press has reported the Catholic Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormon church have successfully blocked many other attempts to close confession loopholes.
Washington would not have been the first state to require clergy to report child abuse or neglect learned during a confession. Six other states and Guam, already do.
During the 2023 Senate session, former Jehovah’s Witnesses testified in support of removing the confession loophole, saying they had known elders to hide abuse allegations.
In the House, there was bipartisan support for adding clergy to the mandatory list and closing the confessional loophole. In the Senate, Republicans and Democrats opposed closing the loophole when they voted on April 17.
“It was a very tough outcome, and I must admit that my feelings are still a bit raw,” Frame said to InvestigateWest but she is hopeful the bill can pass next year in the Senate Rules Committee in the 2024 legislative session, she said.
“Now that I know which of my colleagues have the strongest concerns about the details of closing the exemption, I’ll have a chance to talk with them over the interim and see if I can answer their questions and get us to a ‘yes,’”…“I look forward to trying again next year.”
