Library obscenity bills face long odds, local lawmakers say

WASHINGTON — A handful of librarians and patrons expressed their relief at a legislative forum in Washington Thursday night, as the area’s state lawmakers said they didn’t plan to enact a pair of proposals that would heighten scrutiny of library materials.

A house bill approved by the education committee on Tuesday, House File 274 — recently renamed House File 521 — would repeal broad protections for libraries and art galleries from state obscenity laws. Another proposal in the other chamber, Senate File 347, was referred to a subcommittee for consideration Thursday afternoon, and would establish liabilities for libraries that purchased materials with virtually any “descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act.”

Sen. Dawn Driscoll, a Republican member of that senate subcommittee who represents Iowa and Washington counties, as well as parts of Johnson, said Thursday night that she didn’t plan to advance the legislation.

“I think that the libraries are doing a great job,” Driscoll said at a forum in Washington. “I’m not going to be holding a subcommittee on that bill. We’re not going to be moving that forward, out of the senate, anyway.”

Bills faced criticism from librarians

Both items of legislation faced heavy criticism from area librarians, who said they already had policies in place to ensure their collections maintained only works with political, artistic, educational and literary merit.

Some library staff said legislation like SF 347 and HF 521 led them to seriously reconsider their place in the profession, and in the Hawkeye State.

One library director in the Southeast Iowa Union coverage area, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss their personal career prospects, said they were considering a job at a nearby major retail store as book ban debates grew more common, and more heated.

“They have similar hours to what I work here (minus the weekends) but they have retirement and benefits, and no one will fight me about what's on their shelves,” the library director said.

Ahead of Thursday’s legislative forum, Washington Public Library Director Cary Ann Siegfried said she worried the proposed changes would open libraries up to myriad lawsuits over obscenity allegations. She said that would result in a chilling effect on librarians, who might second-guess purchases of everything to romance novels to biology books to DVDs of popular movies, for fear of legal fees and lengthy court battles.

“Because a small library may not have the means to defend themselves in court … as a result, they end up self-censoring, and making sure that they don’t have anything in the collection that even comes close to meeting the (obscenity) test,” she said. “So you end up with a whole collection of things that are suitable for an eight-year-old to read. And I don’t think that’s what any of us want.”

Siegfried said she understood some Iowans’ concerns about children’s exposure to potentially explicit content, but said public libraries needed to cater to every age group, as well as a wide variety of community members with varying tastes and beliefs.

The Washington library’s adult fiction section currently stands adjacent to its “inspirational fiction” section, with books that predominately focus on explicitly Christian themes. Siegfried said she took pride in that visible variety available to the public.

Overzealous efforts that limit materials, she said, would not only narrow the items available to adult patrons, but would weed out important, meaningful narratives for some younger readers, especially those who faced their own adverse experiences.

“I think we do a disservice to young people in all of our communities who, they’ve already lived through some really, really hard things,” Siegfried said. “In some cases, finding a book that they can actually see themselves in, and see some of the struggles that they’ve had to deal with, that makes them feel less alone. It makes them feel seen.”

Despite lawmakers’ remarks Thursday night, Siegfried said she remained anxious about the proposals.

“Since neither one of them are the only votes on this, I'm not really breathing any sighs of relief yet,” Siegfried said in an email Friday morning.

  Buy Photo

Community members in Kalona had a similar debate in 2023, when a handful of patrons asked the local public library to remove its copy of “Gender Queer,” by Maia Kobabe. Opponents of the book claimed the author’s illustrations of nudity and accounts of gender dysphoria would harm children, regardless of the book’s placement in the adult nonfiction section.

Others argued that library users offended by the work should simply not check it out, and make sure their own children did the same. Library board members grappled for months with the state’s obscenity laws, which define obscene material based on the interpretation of, “the average person, taking the material as a whole and applying contemporary community standards,” when dozens of average people from the same community offered such widely conflicting views.

KPL Assistant Director Trevor Sherping, who was the library’s head director at the time, said he didn’t think either the senate or house proposals would fix the issues that arose in 2023. Kalona’s library board eventually voted to keep the book on a 5-2 tally, but went on to rework its display and complaint review policies in light of the debacle.

“This legal code uses the existing framework … it’s so broad that a vast number of books and movies in any library collection would be deemed obscene,” Sherping said. “I would apologize to any fans of romance, or ‘romantasy,’ but my reading of that legislation means that their favorite books would be subject to removal.

“But I don’t think that’s really likely, there’s instead just a small subset of books that are going to be targeted, often books about marginalized communities … If legislators intend on applying such a broad brush to library collections, the question arises, where are they going to draw the line on what is obscene? That question is still there, you run into the problem of, ‘Who is the arbiter of what qualifies as good?’”

Some support remains for library content restrictions

HF 274 drew hundreds of written public comments ahead of its debate at an education committee meeting, plenty of which endorsed the legislation.

Those comment makers argued the proposal would protect minors from exposure to explicit content, and said it would hold taxpayer-funded institutions accountable for the content they offer patrons. State code currently offers blanket protections for libraries and art galleries accused of obscenity.

“I support this bill as an important action to apply standards for public officials of libraries and schools to be held to, rather than having an exemption,” wrote Harry Ehrlich, a lobbyist from Pella. “There should be accountability for providing materials or programs to our children that are not age-appropriate!”

Shane Schwartz, a Kalona area resident, said he had some concerns about the legislation’s roots in divisive rhetoric, saying many advocates for the bills were “manufacturing a culture war.” He also shared some of Sherping’s worries about vague obscenity definitions remaining difficult to apply or fairly enforce even if the house or senate proposals become law.

  Buy Photo

But he said he also worried about visual depictions of sex in publicly available materials that children could access, and was frustrated with the lack of clear appeal options when local library boards denied good-faith requests to remove those materials.

“You just can’t say it’s educational and show kids anything that you want,” Schwartz said. “Having it be in a library doesn’t make it good. And I feel like that was kind of the flavor of how things were treated when I was concerned about stuff.”

Given those issues, he said he was optimistic about the bills moving state code in the right direction, if enacted.

“I think it’s worth a shot,” he said. “I think that the idea of city governments being accountable to their people is a worthwhile ideal, and this bill is trying to do that.”

Rep. Heather Hora, whose district includes Washington County and rural, southern portions of Johnson County, voted alongside 13 other Republicans in the House Education Committee to recommend HF 274’s passage on Feb. 18.

At Thursday night’s legislative forum, Hora said she saw some merits to the house bill, but didn’t expect to push it any further given the lack of political appetite in the opposite chamber.

“I don’t know that all libraries are doing the right thing, but I think that that needs to be a local issue,” she said. Asked to elaborate after the event, she added, “If it’s dead there (in the senate), we’re not going to put it on the floor.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com