Missouri House Votes To Defund Public Libraries

St. Louis’s NBC affiliate reports:

Public libraries are feeling the heat after the Missouri House perfected budget bills that would eliminate state funding for libraries across state, citing a controversial lawsuit as the reason.

Rep. Cody Smith (R-Carthage), the House Budget Committee chairman, proposed to cut the entire $4.5 million budget slated for Missouri libraries last week after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit to overturn a new Missouri law.

This suit targeted a law banning “explicit sexual” images from all school materials, including library books. This law, the ACLU argued, was directly against the constitutional rights of the students.

The Associated Press reports:



The law, passed last year, does not apply to written descriptions of sex or sexual acts; only photos, drawings, videos and other visual depictions are prohibited.

Librarians and other school officials face up to a year in jail or a $2,000 fine for violating the policy, which makes it a crime to provide minors with sexually explicit visual material. Exceptions are provided for works of art, science classes, and other educational courses.

“Who do we want to be in here?” State Rep. Peter Merideth asked colleagues on the House floor. “The ones banning books and defunding public libraries when they dare to question whether that was constitutional?”