BOISE, Idaho — In a scramble on the last day of the legislative session, Idaho House Republicans fast-tracked and approved a resolution that creates a working group to study children’s access to “harmful” materials in libraries. The resolution was intended to secure enough votes in the House to approve a new budget for the Commission for Libraries.
But hours later, the appropriation bill was shot down in the House, again — this time, by Democrats. The vote extended the session, which was expected to wrap up Friday. The Legislature must pass the budget before it can adjourn.
There was little debate on the budget Friday before it failed. Fifteen Republican lawmakers switched their votes to support the bill since the day before, when they had killed the budget after debate over controversial materials in libraries.
The latest version of the budget cut about $3.5 million from the previous proposal. Those funds came from the American Rescue Plan’s Capital Projects Fund, and were meant for technology projects related to libraries. Legislators had already cut about $300,000, which had been used for a statewide e-book collection for K-12 students.
During Friday’s budget-setting Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, Democratic Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking said libraries amid the COVID-19 pandemic expanded access and in some cases were the only resource for internet “desperately needed” by students and others.
“This budget does not reward the heroic effort that our libraries have done the last few years,” Ward-Engelking said.
The budget also had a requirement that libraries verify resources for K-12 students comply with sections in Idaho code on “obscene materials.” It also requested the Idaho Commission for Libraries provide a written report to legislators by September on “progress in complying with this section and any associated internal audits.”
The Idaho Commission for Libraries assists local libraries by providing aid with operating needs, including internet library services and professional development for libraries.
House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, a Democrat, said Democrats are staunch supporters of libraries and supported previous versions of the budget, but they found the significant cuts “unacceptable” and an “attack on libraries.”
She also said she believed the budget cuts were in large part a punishment for citizens engaging with their government. Librarians wrote into the Legislature in response to a previous bill that would have made libraries liable for distributing harmful materials to minors and “a chunk of the majority caucus felt that they had to be punished for that,” Rubel said.
“I found that to be a very disturbing issue,” she told the Statesman. “If our Legislature is going to engage in punishing people for speaking out and advocating to their representatives, then we are in a very dark place.”
Lawmakers rushed a second budget to approval Friday following a veto by Gov. Brad Little over cybersecurity concerns. On Thursday, Little vetoed Senate Bill 1400, an appropriation bill for the Office of Information Technology Services.
Legislative language was “overly restrictive and hamstrings the state’s ability to effectively respond to present and emerging threats,” Little wrote in his veto letter.
The Joint Finance-Appropriation Committee cleared a new bill, without the language to which Little objected, Friday morning. The House quickly passed the bill in the afternoon.
House lawmakers expect to return Saturday or Monday.
The resolution on “harmful” materials, approved by the House on Friday, gives House leadership the authority to create a working group to protect children from the library materials.
The working group will include House lawmakers, a member of the Idaho Library Association and the State Librarian of the Idaho Commission for Libraries, according to the resolution.
The resolution said the House recognizes that distributing harmful materials to minors is a contributing factor to juvenile crime and to “impairing the ethical and moral development of our youth.” It also calls the proliferation of pornographic materials a “public health crisis” that “inflicts harm on children, families and societies.”
The resolution also affirms the House’s commitment to ensuring Idaho policy has safeguards to prevent children from being exposed to harmful materials in libraries and schools.
“This is not the solution we’d hoped for,” GOP Rep. Gayann DeMordaunt said Friday on the House floor. “We do have something before us that I think that will help us continue to protect minors. … We have an opportunity here to shine further light on this issue.”
Some Republican lawmakers said they don’t believe the resolution will be enough to protect the state’s youth or resolve the issue. Others accused libraries of pushing porn on children.
Legislators said they hope the resolution makes parents aware of what they claimed is happening.
“This is about our children, our grandchildren, and my real concern is we’re losing them to evil,” GOP Rep. Karey Hanks said.
Other legislators, though, argued the debate was perpetuating a false narrative.
“If 3-year-olds and 5-year-olds are going into libraries in Idaho and getting their hands on these materials,” Rep. Chris Mathias, a Democrat, said, “parents are failing at a level that no legislature can fix.”
The resolution comes after a bill — approved by the House, but never heard in the Senate — that would have held libraries liable for distributing “harmful” materials to minors. That bill would have removed an exemption given to schools, public libraries, universities, and museums on a crime of distributing the materials for educational purposes.
Idaho law essentially doesn’t define harmful materials. Idaho code says that someone is guilty of disseminating such materials that include “nudity, sexual conduct or sado-masochistic abuse” or “any other material harmful to minors.” The penalties for disseminating harmful materials include up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Supporters of the bill said it was important to keep inappropriate and pornographic materials out of the hands of children.
But opponents and librarians noted that taken out of context, many materials could appear harmful to children. They also said the bill was vague and criminalized librarians.
