A new Washington state law requiring clergy to report child abuse regardless of church rules was first challenged in court last month and has now attracted the direct attention of the federal government.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) joined a lawsuit against the state of Washington on Monday, June 23. The suit, originally filed by the Catholic Archbishop of Seattle, claims that the new law created by Senate Bill 5375 violates religious rights. The law requires clergy to report child abuse regardless of the situation. The following day, the Washington state GOP announced its support for the federal intervention, alleging that the state law “violates freedom of religion for all catholics.”
Local lawmakers told The Chronicle they saw the legal challenge coming.
Supporters, including Gov. Bob Ferguson, have stood firm in their support of the law. Ferguson said in a statement reported by The Olympian and other local news outlets that “it is disappointing, but not surprising, to see the DOJ seek to shield and protect child abusers.”
In a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, the department described its reasons for filing the suit, alleging that the new bill passed in the state of Washington “violates the free exercise of religion for all Catholics, and requires Catholic priests to violate the confidentiality seal of confession.”
“Senate Bill 5375 unconstitutionally forces Catholic priests in Washington to choose between their obligations to the Catholic Church and their penitents or face criminal consequences, while treating the priest-penitent privilege differently than other well-settled privileges,” Dhillon said. “Laws that explicitly target religious practices such as the Sacrament of Confession in the Catholic Church have no place in our society,”
State Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, chairman of the Washington State GOP and representative for the 19th Legislative District, said in the party’s announcement of support for the legal action by the feds that the lawsuit was important to protecting First Amendment rights as well as religious rights laid out in the Washington state Constitution and criticized Ferguson for signing the bill into law.
“The controversy and these lawsuits pertain to protecting the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article 1, Section 11, of the Washington State Constitution,” Walsh wrote online. “Current WA Gov. Bob Ferguson made a serious mistake by signing into law unconstitutional legislation promoted by anti-religion zealots. As someone who’s read our state constitution, he should have recognized the proposal — which was originally designed to attack Jehovah’s Witnesses — would fail even the simplest application of Article 1, Section 11.”
Senate Bill 5375, which is summarized by legislative staff as “concerning the duty of clergy to report child abuse and neglect,” would require members of the clergy to report even when that information was provided during confession or other ceremonies that fall under protected communication laws. It also expands the meaning of clergy to apply to virtually all religious leaders, including priests, ministers, rabbis and imams.
Privileged communication laws protect communication in certain relationships or situations; for example, those between an attorney and their client, a doctor and their patient or, in this case, a penitent and clergy member. These protections can override mandatiory reporter laws, which require certain people to report child abuse or neglect to the state at their earliest opportunity and no later than 48 hours after learning of the abuse or be charged with a gross misdemeanor.
However, under the new law, clergy are subject to an exemption that states that they will become the only people required to report child abuse based on information acquired solely during priveleged communication, as stated in a final legislative report on the new bill.
“Members of the clergy are mandated reporters of child abuse and neglect. Except for members of the clergy, no one shall be required to report child abuse or neglect when that information is obtained solely as a result of a privileged communication,” states the final bill report.
Law enforcement officers, health practitioners, registered nurses, psychologists, pharmacists and child care providers are just some of the many positions subject to the state's mandatory reporter law.
Local lawmakers weigh in
Following the federal lawsuit and a statement by the statewide Republican Party, The Chronicle reached out to local legislators to hear their thoughts on the legislation and legal action. While some agreed with the stated mission of the law, they also said that the current lawsuit simply supports the concerns they and many of their colleagues raised during the 2025 legislative session.
In a statement provided to The Chronicle, state Rep. Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, said simply that the lawsuit justifies his and other party members' concerns that the new law would not be constitutional.
“I voted against the legislation out of concern that it was unconstitutional. The DOJ lawsuit suggests there was cause for my concern,” he said.
In a similar statement, state Rep. Peter Abbarno, R-Centralia, echoed Orcutt's thoughts and added that while similar bills making clergy mandatory reporters have received bipartisan support in the past, this one, like many in the past, eventually added language that was cause for concern.
“During the 2023-24 legislative session, similar legislation — Senate Bills 6298 and 5280 — passed out of the Senate with broad bipartisan support and likely would have passed overwhelmingly in the House as well,” Abbarno said. “Unfortunately, changes made to those earlier bills and again in SB 5375 during the 2025 session raised serious constitutional concerns and left unanswered questions about why certain professions and individuals were excluded from the new mandatory reporting requirements.”
Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia, in a statement emailed to The Chronicle said that he supports making clergy mandatory reporters but that the new law goes too far and infringes on religious freedoms.
“Clergy should be mandatory reporters of abuse — and I voted for legislation to make that happen — but Senate Bill 5375 crosses a constitutional line by forcing priests to violate the seal of confession, effectively criminalizing a sacred religious vow and putting them at risk of excommunication,” Braun said. “We all want to stop the abuse of children. Any priest who learns of abuse outside the confessional has a moral and legal obligation to report it, but destroying core religious freedoms won’t make victims safer.”
Nineteenth Legislative District Republican lawmakers Sen. Jeff Wilson, R-Longview, Rep. Joel McEntire, R-Cathlamet, and Walsh, R-Aberdeen, did not respond to a request for comment.
