The filing period for state legislators to introduce bills they hope to push through in the next session has been open for nearly a month, and the Observer has tracked everything from the wackiest proposals to those that would target the transgender community.
This week we rounded up several bills that would encourage book review and banning in schools, libraries and bookstores across the state.
One of the most notable proposals, House Bill 183, was filed by Representative Jared Patterson of Frisco, whose name you may recognize from the Restricting Explicit and Adult-Designated Educational Resources, or READER Act, that was passed in 2023. The act requires booksellers to rate the appropriateness of books based on sexual content prior to selling the books to schools, but key portions of the bill have been blocked by state appeals courts.
Enforceable portions prohibit school libraries from keeping books with depictions or descriptions of sex or sexual activity on shelves.
Patterson, who admitted to having never read Lonesome Dove but still wants to ban it, isn’t stopping with the READER act; a statement on his website announcing H.B. 183 stated that the Representative is instead “doubling down” on book banning.
“We have heard [about H.B. 183] and are gearing up to stand up to Patterson just like we did in 2023,” a spokesperson for the advocacy group Students Engaged in Advancing Texas — which drafted several failed amendments to the READER Act — told the Observer.
H.B. 183 would create a statewide library material review process under the jurisdiction of the State Board of Education. The Board currently reviews textbooks for approval, and proponents of a statewide library review measure have likened the proposed process to the one the State Board currently uses to approve curriculum.
Library content management has been a task for local school boards, but the State Board has come out in favor of having more control over what books are allowed in public schools. Last month, the board asked the Legislature to approve a measure such as Patterson’s in the upcoming legislative session.
“This board knows how to vet material. We have processes. We know how to do that. We can create a transparent process to do that work,” Board Member Tom Maynard told the Texas Tribune last month.
Patterson’s bill would allow parents to submit content challenges directly to the State Board, and there is no listed limit for the number of books a parent could submit for review. Submitted titles would have to be removed from libraries across the state until the Board delivers a ruling; if the board rules that a book is inappropriate, it would be permanently removed.
The result would be a book ban list that spans every public school district in the state. Utah recently implemented a statewide banned book list, and has deemed 13 titles forbidden since this summer. Among the discarded titles is the popular A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas, and titles by Judy Blume and Margaret Atwood.
“If this amendment passes, the state will come for your kids’ school library books – even if you don’t want your student’s access to books restricted or removed,” the Texas Freedom to Read Project posted to X. “Even if your local board policy is solid and you’ve had no book challenges."
Several other bills could be helping to tee up Texas’ book-banning bonanza. Senate Bill 88, filed by Sen. Bob Hall of Edgewood, would lower the barrier for books or content to be deemed offensive for minors.
Texas currently outlaws the distribution of content that is “harmful to minors” to anyone under 18, but the material’s dominant theme must be considered harmful in order to qualify. Hall wants to remove that little clarification at the end, so that any book with mature themes — regardless of context, intent or the book’s overall theme — would be illegal to give or sell to a minor.
Nor is this change applicable only to public schools: bookstores and libraries would be held to the same standard. (We are left imagining stern librarians checking drivers licenses before unlocking the Twilight series from an iron cabinet, or students huddling in alleys to purchase fake IDs before heading to Barnes & Noble for the latest Colleen Hoover novel trending on TikTok.)
Another Patterson proposal, H.B. 267, would eliminate the argument that an adult or educator had a “scientific, educational, governmental or other similar” reason to distribute the aforementioned “harmful” material to minors.
“These bills won’t actually do much unless SB 88 or a bill like it also passes,” Frank Strong, co-founder of the Texas Freedom to Read Project, wrote on Substack last week. “But if the definition of “harmful to minors” changes to include Toni Morrison or Alice Walker books, all bets are off.”
