Idaho Republicans Take Third Shot At ‘Sue Libraries Out Of Business’ Bill

The Idaho state Legislature, worried as always that it might be falling behind the big crazy states like Texas and Florida, is taking a third try at a bill to punish libraries if they carry any books that rightwing parents think are too dirty for anyone to read. Y’see, Idaho has had since 1972 a law against “disseminating materials harmful to minors,” but the state’s rightwing culture warriors want to get rid of the law’s exceptions from prosecution for “a bona fide school, college, university, museum or public library” or for employees of those institutions.

In 2022, a rightwing legislator offered a bill — randomly assigned the designation House Bill 666, yes really — that simply removed the exemption, leaving library employees open to criminal prosecution, with a penalty of up to a year in prison and a $1,000 fine. That was too draconian even for Idaho, and while it passed the House, it quietly died in the state Senate without even getting a hearing.

Last year, a different Republican, state Rep. Jaron Crane of Nampa, offered a new bill that got rid of the criminal prosecution bit, including the jail threat, and instead borrowed its enforcement mechanism from Texas’s abortion bounty bill. Instead of targeting librarians, it would allow parents or guardians to sue libraries for up to $2,500 plus “damages” if they thought the library has harmful materials and the library didn’t remove it after receiving a written demand to move the nasty stuff to an “adults only” section of the library. That bill passed both houses of the Lege, but Gov. Brad Little (R) vetoed it, saying he supported the “intent” of the bill but worried it was “ambiguous” and that the $2,500 fines would create a “library bounty system” that could bankrupt libraries, leaving taxpayers footing the bill and/or losing their libraries altogether. He also thought the greater threat to minors was the porn they can readily access on their phones, not so much library books. An override of the veto fell just one vote short in the state House.

Now, Crane is back again with a new version of last year’s bill, which is basically the same but tweaked a little, like many meth-addled Idaho taxpayers. At a committee hearing Monday, attended by hundreds of opponents of the bill including Yr Doktor Zoom (I had to sit in the second overflow room needed to handle the attendees), Crane claimed that his revised bill, HB 384, took care of all the problems that worried Little, although Crane didn’t mention the whole porn all over the internet objection.

The new version is, big surprise, still a mess. Like the earlier bill, it allows parents to sue if libraries don’t remove nasty books or videos after a written complaint, but now libraries have 30 days to comply before parents can sue. But they have to comply: There’s no option for a library to refuse to pull materials without being subject to a lawsuit. The fine is dropped to $250 per incident, but as opponents pointed out during the hearing, the bill still allows actual damages and court costs.

Oh, it gets worse: Using the 1972 statutory language, HB 384 still defines “sexual conduct” as “any act of masturbation, homosexuality, sexual intercourse, or physical contact with a person’s clothed or unclothed” swimsuit area or lady’s boobies. We paraphrase a bit at the end. For the heck of it, the bill also adds in parts of the Supreme Court’s 1973 “Miller test” for obscenity, which holds that material is obscene only if it “appeals to the prurient interest,” depicts sexing that’s “patently offensive to prevailing standards” in the community, and is completely without “serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value” — with “for minors” welded on to each prong of the test.

Crane and supporters of the bill insist that since its definitions only apply to library materials that are “obscene” under both Idaho and federal law, nobody needs to worry that libraries will be forced to take hundreds of books off the shelves, don’t be silly.

But of course, that would only be decided once a parent sues, so a parent can still sue if a library doesn’t pull a harmless little picture book like Prince and Knight — a sweet little story for ages four to eight, in which a prince and knight fight a dragon, save the kingdom, get married, and live happily ever after. Everyone stays clothed, nobody sexes, and the titular heroes don’t even kiss each other on the cheek. But they’re both boys, so, as one witness Monday proclaimed, it’s a “groomer book,” and no library has any recourse other than winning a lawsuit if it wants to keep it on the shelf. (We suppose “hoping the angry parent will listen to reason and not sue” is a kind of recourse, too.) Rep. Crane didn’t reply to Yr Wonkette’s emailed request for comment.

The testimony Monday was overwhelmingly against the bill, even in the short period for public comments. Idaho Falls library chief Robert Wright said the bill would be unworkable, since his building would need to have guards to check IDs before anyone could enter the adults section.

Republican state Rep. Julianne Young asked several witnesses, including Wright, if they would agree that “graphic sexual content is harmful” to kids, but Wright wouldn’t agree to such a blanket, vague description, because sex ed is a thing, and also, as he noted, kids who have been sexually abused may only realize that they’re victims of a crime if they read about it — in some of the books that may be affected by the bill. Choking up, he said, “it can also be helpful. That’s why we allow parents to make those choices.”

Idaho Education Association General Counsel Shane Reichert testified that the bill was “overly broad” and would lead to frivolous lawsuits, Crane’s reassurances notwithstanding.

Another librarian, Isabella Burgess, noted that if the bill passes, it would mean that her library in Meridian might not be able to hire teen interns anymore, since simply processing and shelving some books might lead to a lawsuit.

That set up a weird moment shortly after, when failed Republican House candidate Jackie Davidson claimed the Boise library is chock full of filth. She waved a copy of Prince & Knight, as well as a stack of books from the teen section, calling them “grooming books, and promoting homosexuality and gender dysphoria.”

Davidson also claimed the YA fiction novel Red Hood was “obscene” and shouldn’t be available to anyone, let alone teens; the committee chair asked a House page to collect the library copy Davidson brought to the hearing, but then said, no, maybe not, since the page was a minor.

Ultimately, though, the clear concerns about the bill and its almost guaranteed chilling effect on libraries weren’t enough to dissuade any of the Republicans on the committee, and the bill was voted to the full House by 11 to 2. We’ll keep you up to date on where it goes from here.

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[Idaho Capital Sun / Idaho Statesman / Idaho HB 384 / Idaho Press]

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