In opting not to veto a bill whose rough predecessor he did kill a year earlier, Governor Brad Little has handed to each of the couple million people in Idaho an unusual piece of authority:
To decide what is harmful to children, and thereby possibly deny it to everyone.
This emerges in enactment of House Bill 710, the latest legislation targeting libraries and which was signed on April 10 into law, effective July 1.
The bill is most specific in trying to target anything which seems to relate in any way to sex, or gender or sexual orientation, not just explicitly but also making any kind of reference to “sexual excitement” (try coming up with specific limitations about what’s okay or not there) - but not only that either. It also takes aim at “any other material harmful to minors.”
In principle, an overwhelming majority of people would not want in libraries, or other places where children may go, anything harmful to children.
But here’s where it gets tricky.
What exactly is “harmful” to children?
The bill - the law - doesn't really specify what “harmful” means. In fact, not many people would necessarily agree on what that is. You and I might not. A room full of people in any given Idaho community probably would come up with a wide range of answers.
If any such (indeterminate) materials are given to a child, a large list of people have a legal “cause of action,” meaning they can sue the library; that’s in addition to elected prosecutors and the state attorney general. “Damages” can be awarded to the plaintiffs. If the materials aren’t removed within a specific period, consequences can ensue.
While the “damages” that can be recovered is not massive - $250, far smaller than a year ago - that relates to each challenge. A single book could be challenged any number of times by any number of people, and there’s no particular limit to how many individual books (or other materials) could be challenged by a single person. Sky’s the limit - or, maybe, the limit of the library’s budget.
The uncertainty in all this is reminiscent of some of the recent abortion law exemptions: A physician who guesses wrong about what someone else (a lay juror, for example) may think about what was medically necessary, could mean the difference between keeping or losing one’s medical license or freedom from prison. In the case of the library, every librarian will be put in the position of having to figure out what may be “harmful” and what isn’t.
Consider, for example, Idaho Falls, not a community on the cultural cutting edge but with some variety of people, as its librarian, Robert Wright, told the Idaho Ed News: “We have same-gender families, so we have books that talk about same-gender families. The picture book that shows little Timmy going to school with two dads or two moms, what are the community standards? … Until it’s litigated — and it’ll probably be litigated at some point — we don’t really know where we’re at.”
Where we are at may be a race among some people to find the objectionable in wherever they look, depriving everyone else of the ability to access what they’ve been accustomed to having available to them.
And don’t imagine this affects only children. While many libraries have spaces dedicated to children, few if any in Idaho are “adults only,” meaning that if you want to ensure children won't see, that means no one - whatever their age - will.
This is good legislation for people who hate reading and libraries. People who don’t will have a chance to weigh in come the May primary elections.