* Press release…

Landmark legislation designed to prevent book banning passed the Illinois Senate, Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias announced [yesterday].

HB 2789, which now awaits the Governor’s signature, sets a nationwide precedent in the fight against book bans, as libraries and librarians face unprecedented censorship of books and resources, including in Illinois. The bill passed the Illinois House in March.

Giannoulias, who also serves as the State Librarian, initiated HB 2789 after extremist groups – including the far-right nationalist group, the Proud Boys – targeted Illinois libraries, divided communities and harassed librarians, despite that the books are not required reading. […]

House Bill 2789, sponsored by State Rep. Anne Stava-Murray (81st District – Downers Grove) and Sen. Laura Murphy (28th District – Elk Grove Village), allow Giannoulias’ office to authorize grant funding only to libraries that adhere to the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights states that reading materials should not be removed or restricted because of partisan or personal disapproval, or that issue a statement prohibiting the practice of banning books or resources.

Currently, Illinois law does not contain language related to book banning or the eligibility for state grants if a library bans items from its collection. Last fiscal year, the Secretary of State’s office awarded 1,631 grants to Illinois libraries totaling more than $62 million. Of those, 97% of the grants were awarded to public and school libraries, with public libraries receiving 877 grants and school libraries securing 712 grants.

According to the Chicago-based American Library Association (ALA), there were 67 attempts to ban books in Illinois in 2022, increasing from 41 the previous year.

Nationally, the number of attempts to ban books has been surging. According to the ALA, last year more than 2,500 different books were objected to, compared to 1,858 in 2021 and just 566 in 2019. […]

If signed into law, HB 2789 would take effect on January 1, 2024.

* From Giannoulias’ press conference…

At the state’s librarian, we’ve traveled the state. We’ve spoken to librarians, and what we’ve heard unequivocally across the board is that librarians have never dealt with this level of intimidation, hatred. They’re scared, they’re quitting their jobs. It’s tougher to get new librarians for doing what they’ve always done … That, to me is absolutely unacceptable.

He went on to say that he was “blown away that this has become a partisan issue,” which, he said, “has been the most disheartening part of this whole process.”

* Sen. Andrew Chesney (R-Freeport)…

“This is yet another example of extreme Democrats in the General Assembly taking rights away from parents and local communities and deciding what is best for people. This law, if signed by the Governor, installs a statewide doctrine that provides that all content will be equally available to minors and adults. Through its very nature, this legislation will subject minor children to inappropriate adult content.

“It is becoming commonplace at the Capitol for the majority party to push through legislation that tramples on the rights of people who don’t agree with them or don’t share their same liberal ideology. They’ve been pushing their agenda in our schools, and now they are forcing it upon our libraries. This isn’t about adults going to their library and viewing adult content. It’s about children having unfettered access to that same content, and that’s simply unacceptable.”

* Sen. Jason Plummer (R-Edwardsville)…

This bill is another attempt by the super majority to make it easier to force their extreme ideology on communities across this state, by taking control away from locally elected library boards, and handing it to an outside national organization. It’s offensive to the ideals of good government to threaten to take public funding away from the very communities that generated that funding through their taxes. The members of locally elected library boards, who work to increase literacy in their communities, don’t need a book-ban agenda foisted on them by Chicago politicians who are just trying to get cheap publicity. I will continue to fight against these repeated attempts to take away local control from our communities, whether their target is schools, libraries, or other units of local government.

Sen. Plummer professed not to know what the American Library Association even is. He called it a “random organization” four times during floor debate. One excerpt…

A yes vote on this bill does two things that I think everyone in this chamber should really think about. One, it deprives local taxpayers of the very revenue that they spend to support their local schools and libraries. And it allows unelected and unidentified random people in some organization at the national level to ban books, to set local policy and to usurp the authority of the local elected officials that our constituents voted into their position to make decisions on their behalf. None of your constituents voted for this random organization. None of your constituents are funding this random organization. They’re funding their local libraries, they’re electing their local library boards, and you’re taking their powers away from them simply because you may not agree with their beliefs.

Yeah, no. First, the American Library Association was founded in 1876. It’s a pretty durable American institution. They published a Library Bill of Rights in 1939. It ain’t some rando.

Second, we covered this library board topic in March…

According to the Illinois Public Library Trustee Manual, issued by the secretary of state’s office, only library directors and their staff should be selecting library materials, not library boards.

And the comments by more moderate Senate Republicans during debate (including about drag shows) just confirms my belief that the party’s center is too willing to enable its far right wing to the point where the center (such as it remains) will soon disappear.

* More of that in Isabel’s roundup…

* Tribune | Bill aimed at deterring library book bans heads to Gov. J.B. Pritzker after party-line vote in Senate: “The conversation has been based around book bans. This bill is about taking local control from your elected officials who are elected locally to decide for their libraries what’s best for their libraries,” said Rezin, a Republican from Morris. “Southern Illinois may be different than the suburbs. The suburbs may be different than Chicago.” …

* WCIA | Illinois bill preventing library book bans passes Senate: “This is just a layer of bureaucracy and a threat to these local districts, a bureaucratic threat of taking away their funding that they desperately need,” Sen. Jil Tracy (R-Quincy) said.

* Capitol News Illinois | Bill blocking libraries from state funding if they ban books clears General Assembly: “I think what I heard is, regarding the Bill of Rights here, that if a library does not make its public space available for anyone who wants to use it, including, say, a drag show, because of what the local officials of that library feel is not appropriate for the library, that library can now potentially lose their state funding,” [Sen. Sue Rezin, R-Morris] said. Likewise, Sen. Steve McClure, R-Springfield, said that prohibiting libraries from banning books for any reason would mean they could not reject the donation of books from the public, including books that are purely hate speech or books offering directions on how to build a bomb. … At his news conference, Giannoulias described those arguments as “ludicrous” and said the legislation does not deal with drag shows or dictate to librarians what materials they have to maintain. “We’re not telling you what books to buy or not buy,” he said. “What we’re saying is, if a book is in circulation as determined by the libraries and the librarians, that book cannot be banned because a group of individuals don’t like or want that book in their library. That’s what the legislation is all about.”