Return of the Library Bill

This morning I got up early to sit in Senate State Affairs to hear about the new library bill, S1289. This is the compromise bill between Rep. Jaron Crane and Sen. Geoff Schroeder, crafted after Crane’s H389 had already passed the House State Affairs Committee.

Crane’s original bill created a mechanism to request a book be relocated and gave libraries thirty days to rectify the situation or face a civil action. The bill that Schroeder originally presented created a committee within school districts to hear requests for reconsideration. The new bill combines those ideas.

You can read the bill text here. What it does is creates a regular process in public and school libraries throughout the state with a standard form to request reconsideration of library materials. Library and school boards would be required to create a committee of at least three people, one of whom must be a parent of a minor child. When a library patron submits a reconsideration form, the committee must meet in an open public meeting to hear both sides. They must then provide written justification either for keeping the book in its place or moving it.

If the patron who submitted the form disagrees with the decision, he or she can escalate to the board itself, and then to a judge. If the committee rules that something does violate Idaho statute regarding materials harmful to minors, but that item is returned to the children’s section of the library, then a patron has a private cause of action to sue the library and collect damages.

This bill did the unthinkable: uniting left and right in opposition. The left, as represented by the librarians who testified this morning, does not seem to want any restriction on what materials are available to children. The consensus was that this is a made-up problem, that there is no porn in libraries, but the controversial items that are there are necessary to expand children’s minds and foster their curiosity.

Most conservatives, on the other hand, believe the bill does not go far enough. Grace Howat testified on behalf of the Idaho Family Policy Center and asked the committee to amend the bill to make it stronger. Both she and Sen. Ben Toews took issue with the bill only referencing half the Idaho statute defining materials harmful to minors. According to Sen. Schroeder, that was deliberate, to bring the bill in line with Supreme Court precedents.

Ron Nate, president of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, testified against the bill, saying it made no provision to force libraries and schools to preemptively remove materials harmful for children that are already on their shelves:

I testified in favor of the bill, because I think the process it creates is a good one. I don’t think there is a law we could possibly pass that would automatically remove every book that conservatives and Christians object to, but we can create a process to allow patrons to police their own libraries.

I understand the objections. Passing this bill might allow legislators to say they’ve done their bit and wash their hands of the issue going forward. It would also give Sen. Schroeder, who has few conservative values, ammunition in what should be a tough race against former Sen. Christy Zito in District 8.

Should the Legislature kill this bill and come back next year with a better one? There are no guarantees. The primary elections next May could yield a more conservative Legislature, or we might lose some of the conservative stalwarts we have now. The governor already vetoed one library bill, and could easily do it again.

I believe we should take this bill, and the due process it lays out, and see what we can do. As I said in my testimony, I have long thought that creating a reconsideration committee made up of members of the community is a good idea, and if this passes, I will have legislative backing when I bring it to my own library board.

While this won’t allow just anyone to go into any library and challenge any book, it will allow parents to intervene in their own schools and libraries. I think that’s something we can build upon. If it fails to solve the problem of the most heinous examples of harmful materials, then we can still petition the Legislature to do more.

However, there is no substitute for local involvement. You need to get on your local library and school boards. You need to show up at meetings. You need to be working in schools and libraries —how many conservatives apply to work in their public or school libraries? In the end, it is those staffers who are on the front lines of deciding what will be on our library shelves and what will not.

One thing is undeniable: there is definitely a problem. Many of those who testified against the bill this morning argued that the problem was made up, fake, a false issue designed to create controversy. Others argued that whatever anyone thought of the materials on the shelves, they were there to stimulate curiosity in children and make them aware of different ideas. In other words, it’s not happening, and it’s a good thing that it’s happening.

Sen. Kelly Anthon read from the Idaho statute describing materials harmful to minors in all the gory detail and then looked at the testifiers in the audience and asked if this is what they were trying to protect. You can read them all yourself in Title 18, Chapter 15, Section 14.

I’ll give Sen. Chuck Winder some credit as well. He admitted that when the first library bill, H666, was before the Legislature in 2022, he dismissed it as unnecessary. He even called it “crazy”. However, when he saw what a classmate of his young granddaughter found in her school, he realized that the problem was not being exaggerated and must be dealt with.

How many others out there are in the same position as Chuck Winder, assuming that this is a made-up issue exaggerated by crazy extremists? How many are willing to allow their minds to be changed?

I hope that S1289 will provide a way to deal with the problem, but no matter what, we must continue to get more involved in our own communities. The future depends on it.

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