In final hours, Indiana lawmakers revive — and then kill — book-banning bill

In the final hours of the legislative session, lawmakers revived and then promptly killed a bill that would have criminalized teachers and librarians who exposed kids to books and other materials that some may find obscene.

Critics of the bill say it's unnecessary — schools already have processes in place to deal with book challenges — and it could lead to censorship and book banning.

The proposal has been championed by conservative, right-wing groups who say they’re concerned about their children being exposed to sexually-explicit and age-inappropriate material at school. Some parents have been raising concerns about the material their children have access to at schools — particularly books with sexually explicit scenes or centered on LGBTQ experiences — for more than a year.

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Indiana's bill came amid a national debate over books and who should decide what’s appropriate for kids. In Tennessee, "Maus," a Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, was banned amid questions of profanity. Award-winning Toni Morrison's books, which deal with themes of racism, have repeatedly been banned for explicit materials in school districts nationwide.

Sen. Jim Tomes, R-Wadesville, authored the bill and said he wasn't trying to ban books. Rather, Tomes said, he was trying to protect kids from being exposed to "raw pornographic" material. 

Still, critics said the effect likely would have been self-censorship of books from K-12 schools and libraries. 

The Indiana bill would have stripped protections for school and public library employees from prosecution under the state’s law that prohibits the dissemination of harmful to minors, which is defined as matter that:

• describes or represents, in any form, nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sado-masochistic abuse;
• considered as a whole, it appeals to the prurient interest in sex of minors;
• it is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable matter for or performance before minors; and
• considered as a whole, it lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.

Violating the law is a Level 6 Felony. Schools and libraries are among the entities with an automatic defense.

As the legislation wound its way through the Statehouse, no specific books were publicly discussed as needing to be banned in Indiana but advocates did give lawmakers excerpts they found objectionable. Most of the concerning passages were sexual encounters, pulled from young adult novels.  Their hope was that this change in the law would lead to such “objectionable material” being pulled from school libraries.

Tomes attempted to get the measure passed last year. It was never voted out of the Senate. Tomes tried again this legislative session, with Senate Bill 17. This time, it passed the Senate but was never taken up in the House. The House passed its own version, including the measure in the critical race theory-inspired House Bill 1134.

HB 1134 was a controversial bill that would ban educators from discussing several “divisive concepts” around race, sex and religion and give parents greater access to the materials being used and lessons being delivered in their children’s classrooms. It was killed in the Senate.

Advocates refused to give up, lobbying lawmakers to revive the language by amending into a bill still under consideration. Ultimately, it was added into a previously unrelated bill dealing with the sentence modifications for certain inmates. 

House Bill 1369 became what lawmakers refer to as a "Christmas tree bill" because it contains so many unrelated measures they're trying to revive late in the session. 

HB 1369 also included language adding specified substances to the scheduled list of controlled substances, the creation of a study committee to look at delta-8 THC and a provision dealing with towing services. The original bill would have allowed inmates convicted of certain non-violent crimes, primarily drug-related offenses, to petition to have their sentence reduced or suspended at the recommendation of the department of corrections.

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Several lawmakers raised questions about whether the so-called "harmful material" language met rules that require amended language be germane to the original bill.

Rep. Matt Pierce, D-Bloomington, questioned why the language was included in the sentence modification bill, legislation which Pierce said he had supported. He said the book banning language was so subjective, it probably wouldn't lead to many convictions but was more likely to have a chilling effect on librarians.

"They're going to be nervous that somebody can come after them because they don't like something in a book," he said. "So what they're going to do is, they're going to stay away from anything that might remotely offend someone."

Ultimately, the conference committee report was adopted along largely party lines by committees in each chamber and sent to the floor for a final vote as lawmakers were concluding their business for the legislative session. It was passed in the House, 65-32.

Just after midnight, it was the final bill called for a vote in the Senate. Sen. Michael Young, R-Indianapolis, introduced the bill this way: "This conference committee report deals with sex, drugs, hot cars and modification assistances after you get caught doing all those things."

There was no debate on the bill. It was defeated, 21-29.

Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray, R-Martinsville, said afterward that the bill "started to take on a lot of water" when various provisions were added onto it in the waning hours. He said concerns about the school language may have been at least part of the problem.

It's unclear why the language was added to HB 1369 at seemingly the last minute. It had been amended into a different bill previously, but that idea was scrapped the day before. Lawmakers acknowledged in the last few days of the session that they were having trouble finding a place for the language to land, after both bills it had previously been included in died.

The legislative session ended in the early hours Wednesday morning. 

Call IndyStar education reporter Arika Herron at 317-201-5620 or email her at Arika.Herron@indystar.com. Follow her on Twitter: @ArikaHerron.