Texas parents, school boards may have more control over school library books after House OKs bill

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The Texas House gave preliminary approval Monday to a bill that would give Texas parents and school boards a bigger role over what books students can access in public school libraries.

Senate Bill 13 would give school boards, not school librarians, the final say over what materials are allowed in their schools’ libraries by creating a framework for them to remove books based on complaints they receive. The bill would allow school boards to oversee book approvals and removals, or delegate the responsibility to local school advisory councils if 20% of parents in a district sign a petition allowing their creation. Previously, SB 13 mandated the creation of those councils when it passed through the Senate in March, but the petition requirement was added in a House committee.

SB 13, initially passed by the House 87-57, also includes definitions for what constitutes harmful material and indecent content, which led Democratic representatives to express concerns about overzealous bans on books.

During the discussion on the House floor Monday, Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, pointed specifically to bill language requiring approved books to adhere to “local community values,” which he said could lead small, vocal groups of people to limit students’ book access. Talarico said titles often taught in public schools — like Catcher in the Rye, Lonesome Dove and the Bible — could end up banned under some of the bill’s vague and subjective interpretations.

“If your answer to ‘could Romeo and Juliet be banned,’ if it is anything other than ‘of course not,’ then that is a serious problem,” Talarico said.

Rep. Erin Zwiener, D-Driftwood, also worried the bill could lead to overly broad book bans.

“What is indecent for a 17 year old is not the same as what is indecent for a five year old,” she said.

Rep. Brad Buckley, the bill’s House sponsor, called community values the “bedrock” of public policy, and the Salado Republican dismissed potential removal of classics as a “red herring” argument.

“A speaker before me said we should cherish the value of books. Well, maybe so, but I would argue we should cherish and value our kids more, and Senate Bill 13 will do exactly that,” Buckley said.

Representatives supportive of the bill said SB 13 would give parents better control over what materials their children can access.” About 16% of complaints about school library books last year were initiated by parents, according to a report from the American Library Association, while 72% came from elected officials, pressure groups and board members and administrators.

Several amendments by Democratic representatives aiming to loosen the bill’s language on profane content failed. An amendment by Rep. Brent Money, R-Greenville, which also failed, would have lowered the threshold to petition the creation of an advisory council to 50 signatures from parents, and would have required that the councils only be made up by people who signed the petition.

The bill would also extend regulation introduced by a law passed in 2023 aimed at keeping “sexually explicit” material out of school libraries. House Bill 900 was partially blocked from implementing a book rating system by a federal appeals court.

Opponents of the bill have worried not only about restricting book access, but also about the administrative backlog that having to approve each new library book could create. School boards will have 90 days after complaints on each book are filed to reach a decision on whether to add, keep or remove material from school bookshelves.

Roughly 540 books were banned in Texas schools during the 2023-24 school year, according to PEN America, an organization that has tracked book bans throughout the country.

The bill, one of Senate leader Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s listed legislative priorities, now heads back to the upper chamber to be approved.

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