Senate Bill 5575 amends existing Washington family law statutes and adds a new section to chapter 26.09 RCW to change how courts handle limitations in parenting plans. The bill directs courts to avoid drawing presumptions from temporary parenting plans, to apply the rules of evidence and civil procedure in determining whether limiting conduct has occurred (unless parties opt for an informal family law trial), and to consider protection orders in the court’s discretion. It modifies RCW 26.09.191 and other parenting, modification, relocation, guardianship, and guardian ad litem provisions listed in the bill caption, and reenacts and amends RCW 26.51.020. The bill creates procedural rules and substantive limits on residential time, decision-making authority, and dispute resolution when a parent—or a person the parent knowingly resides with—has engaged in conduct the court finds poses a risk to a child. Mandatory limitations are required upon specific findings such as willful abandonment, physical or patterns of emotional abuse, a history of domestic violence, assaults causing grievous harm or fear, sexual assault, or sexual abuse of a child. It establishes rebuttable presumptions that a parent convicted as an adult of certain sex offenses against a child, or a parent who resides with a person convicted or adjudicated of such offenses, poses a present danger; unless rebutted the court must restrain contact or limit contact to times when the convicted person is not present. The bill sets standards for supervised visitation (presumption in favor of professional supervision unless a qualified lay supervisor is found), requirements for evaluations and treatment, rules for revoking a supervisor, emergency ex parte suspension of residential time with a review hearing within 14 days, and strict conditions for any unsupervised contact following findings of sexual abuse (including multi-year supervised periods, treatment/completion, and psychosexual evaluations where applicable). The bill also makes procedural changes to guardianship and family law processes: it amends guardianship appointment rules (including giving minors age 12 or older a nomination preference), requires letters of office for guardians to expire at the minor’s eighteenth birthday, preserves parent-child visitation except where limitations apply, prohibits court-ordered face-to-face mediation when domestic violence has been found, and revises modification and relocation rules (including narrow “minor modification” criteria, a rebuttable presumption favoring relocation, and military-related delegation and timing rules). It changes guardian ad litem training and appointment procedures, requires rotational registries for compensated GAL programs, and directs removal from GAL registries for misrepresentation. The act reenacts and amends the abusive litigation provisions in RCW 26.51.020. Important text is missing from the provided extracts (notably the full language of “section 2” and several statutory subsections and lists), so some cross-references, exact lists of covered offenses and the complete rebuttal standards and amendments are unclear from these facts alone.

If enacted, this bill would make family courts more likely to limit a parent's time with their child and to remove shared decision-making or informal dispute processes when a parent has sexually abused a child, been convicted of specified sex offenses, been found a sexually violent predator, willfully abandoned a child, or engaged in domestic violence, physical abuse, or a pattern of emotional abuse. Parents who live with someone convicted or found to have committed child sex offenses would face similar presumptions of risk. Courts would be directed to favor supervised visits (typically by professional supervisors), could suspend contact temporarily with quick review hearings, require evaluations and treatment before restoring contact, and set strict conditions before allowing unsupervised contact (for example, at least two years of safe supervised time and specific evaluations or treatment). The most affected people and systems are parents accused or convicted of these harms and the children involved, family courts and clerks, visitation supervisors and programs, evaluators and treatment providers, and guardian ad litem programs; expect more evaluations, supervised-visit arrangements, specialized training for guardians ad litem, faster-review hearings, and likely higher costs and workload for courts and service providers, while parents subject to limits will have fewer options for mediation or shared decision-making. Some important details are missing from the extracted text (notably the full content of the referenced "section 2," some statutory cross-references, and portions of lists and definitions), so exact triggers for certain limits, the complete list of covered offenses, and some procedural mechanics are unclear from the material provided.