As State Legislative Sessions Kick Off, the Bad Bills Outpace Good Ones for Libraries and Readers

Our commitment to our EveryLibrary community is to keep you informed and help you support legislation that builds communities and schools through libraries or oppose legislation that harms readers' rights, targets librarians and attacks our libraries and schools.

Several state legislatures gaveled their 2025 session into order last week

A raft of new legislation was formally introduced and, in some bodies, referred to committees.

The bad bills outnumber the good ones as of this first week of January.

We are tracking all the states very closely this session and are directly and intently supporting several of our partner organizations.

 


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Anti-Library and Anti-Reader Bills

Indiana has two very negative bills that would dismantle public library funding and target school libraries. SB283 would end the authority of public libraries to impose property taxes. This would place all public libraries under their counties and allow counties to fund them at whatever level their county commission wants. SB283 would fundamentally defund most libraries in the state. While the bill provides for a new power for counties to put a special levy into effect, we do not think that it will be universally embraced. The other bill, HB1195, is another attempt by the Indiana legislature to regulate school libraries and remove pornography– which is not in schools to begin with.

Kentucky is seeing HB207 introduced. A pernicious proposal sets up a situation where a book will be removed from a school library if any member of a school library board objects to someone reading a passage aloud at a board meeting.

Florida has seen a similar law that pro-censorship activists are weaponizing. In New Hampshire, our partners are beginning to fight back against two bills, HB324, which is this year’s attempt to criminalize schools and school libraries and over-regulate reading, and SB33, which also has anti-reader and anti-access language.

In South Dakota, we note with grave concern that HB1041, the bill that would essentially close the state library and force the state to reject federal funding from IMLS, has been filed. We have reached out to the state library association to offer our assistance.

 


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Positive Bills Introduced

Several states saw new positive legislation begin to be introduced.

In Connecticut, the Education Committee agreed to discuss a school library bill this session and the introduction of SB523, which supports the right to read (and will likely be amended as it goes forward).

In Massachusetts, two senators will be introducing companion right-to-read bills, but we don’t have numbers as of today. Modifications will also be proposed as the session progresses.

Missouri saw HB95 formally introduced. It is a “ban book bans bill” focused on the idea that any public library that takes state or federal money should be viewpoint neutral.

Virginia introduced a new Joint Resolution in the second half of its session. HJR440 / SJR251 directs the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) to study the removal of books from public school libraries between July 1, 2020, and December 31, 2024.

 


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Join the Fight

Our commitment to these state fights extends to our honoring our donors’ intent that we work hard in support of our mission to preserve, protect, defend, and expand library services and the right to read.

If you would like to support this work through our political action committee, we will put your donation to work immediately on the staff time it takes to support our partners and the advertising and outreach dollars it takes to break through the clutter and activate more Americans for libraries.

Thank you for the help.