ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A movement to ban book bans is gaining steam in Minnesota and several other states, in contrast to the trend playing out in more conservative states where book challenges have soared to their highest levels in decades.
The move to quash book bans is welcome to people like Shae Ross, a queer and out Minnesota high school senior who has fought on the local level against bans on books dealing with sexuality, gender and race. Ross, 18, said she is encouraged to see her governor and leaders of other states are taking the fight statewide.
“For a lot of teenagers, LGBT teenagers and teenagers who maybe just don’t feel like they have a ton of friends, or a ton of popularity in middle or high school ... literature becomes sort of an escape.” Ross said. “Especially when I was like sixth, seventh grade, I’d say reading books, especially books with gay characters ... was a way that I could feel seen and represented.”
Minnesota is one of several Democratic-leaning states where lawmakers are now pursuing bans on book bans. The Washington and Maryland legislatures have already passed them this year, while Illinois did so last year. It was a major flashpoint of Oregon's short session, where legislation passed the Senate but died without a House vote.
According to the American Library Association, over 4,200 works in school and public libraries were targeted in 2023, a jump from the old record of nearly 2,600 books in 2022. Many challenged books — 47% in 2023 — had LGBTQ+ and racial themes.
Restrictions in some states have increased so much that librarians and administrators fear crippling lawsuits, hefty fines and even imprisonment if they provide books that others regard as inappropriate. Already this year, lawmakers in more than 15 states have introduced bills to impose harsh penalties on libraries or librarians.
Conservative parents and activists argue that the books are too sexually explicit or otherwise controversial, and are inappropriate, especially for younger readers. National groups such as Moms for Liberty say parents are entitled to more control over books available to their children.
But pushback is emerging. According to EveryLibrary, a political action committee for libraries, several states are considering varying degrees of prohibitions on book bans. A sampling includes California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont, though some in conservative states appear unlikely to pass. One has also died in New Mexico this year.
One such bill is awaiting Democratic Gov. Wes Moore’s signature in Maryland. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill last month that sets a high bar for removing challenged materials, especially those dealing with race, sexual orientation and gender identity. A version pending in New Jersey would protect librarians from civil or criminal liability.
Some proposals are labeled “Freedom to Read” acts.
“That’s what’s so critical here. The voluntary nature of reading,” said Martha Hickson, a librarian at North Hunterdon High School in New Jersey. “Students can choose to read, not read, or totally ignore everything in this library. No one is asking them to read a damn thing.”
Hickson recalled how parents first suggested her book collections contained pedophilia and pornography during a school board meeting in 2021. She watched the livestream in horror as they objected that the novel “Lawn Boy” and illustrated memoir “Gender Queer” were available to students and suggested she could be criminally liable.
“Tears welled up, shaking" Hickson said. ”But once my body got done with that, my normal attitude, the fight side kicked in, and I picked up my cellphone while the meeting was still going on and started reaching out.”
Book bans have been a sore point for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a former high school teacher. The Minnesota Senate passed his proposal this month. It would prohibit book bans in public and school libraries based on content or ideological objections and require that the key decisions about what books will or won't be offered be made by library professionals.
The state House is considering an approach with more teeth, including penalties and allowing private citizens to sue to enforce it.
“I’m working with stakeholders, with the Department of Education, librarians, school districts and their representatives," said Democratic Rep. Cedrick Frazier, of New Hope. "We’re working to tighten up the language, to make sure we can come to a consensus, and just kind of make sure that everybody’s on the same page.”
Ross, a student at Jefferson High School in Bloomington, was alarmed when she heard last year that conservative groups were organizing in her community to ban books based on their content. So she and her friends got organized themselves, and they helped persuade their school board to make it much harder to remove books and other materials from their libraries and classrooms.
Because of her activism, Ross was invited when Walz went to Como Park Senior High School in St. Paul last month to view a display of books banned elsewhere. The governor called book bans “the antithesis of everything we believe” and denounced what he depicted as a growing effort to bully school boards.
At a House hearing last month, speakers said books by LGBTQ+ and authors of color are among those most frequently banned. Karlton Laster, director of policy and organizing for OutFront Minnesota, who identifies as Black and queer, said reading their works helped him “communicate my hard feelings and truths to my family and friends,” and helped him come out to his family.
Kendra Redmond, a Bloomington mother with three children in public schools, testified about efforts to push back against a petition drive by conservatives to pull about 28 titles from the city’s school libraries.
Pushback from Ross, Redmond and others succeeded. The Bloomington School Board last month made it much harder to seek removals. Parents can still restrict access by their own children to material they deem objectionable.
Many challenges in the district came from the Bloomington Parents Alliance. One of its leaders, Alan Redding, recalled how his son's 9th grade class was discussing a book a few years ago when graphic passages about date rape were read aloud in class. He said his son and other kids were unprepared for something so explicit.
“They were clearly bothered by this and disgusted,” Redding said. ”My son absolutely shut down for the semester."
Minnesota Republican lawmakers have argued that instead of worrying about book bans, they should be focusing instead on performance in a state where just under half of public school students can read at grade level.
“Every book is banned for a child that doesn’t know how to read,” said GOP Rep. Patricia Mueller, a teacher from Austin.
Catalini reported from Trenton, New Jersey. Associated Press reporters Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, and Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland, contributed to this story.
Shae Ross, a senior at Jefferson High School, pose for a photo April, 19, 2024, in Bloomington, Minn. Ross and other students successfully campaigned their district not to ban certain books dealing with sexuality, gender and race after some parents objected to their presence in classrooms and libraries. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave)
Bloomington Jefferson senior Shae Ross, fourth from left, joins Governor Tim Walz, right, and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, second from left, at an event promoting proposed legislation to prevent books bans based on ideology at Como Park High School in St. Paul, Minnesota on March 21, 2024. (Chris Williams/Education Minnesota via AP)
Bloomington Jefferson senior Shae Ross, center, joined Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, left, at an event promoting proposed legislation to prevent books bans based on ideology at Como Park High School in St. Paul, Minn., on March 21, 2024. (Chris Williams/Education Minnesota via AP)
LONDON (AP) — Britain's governing Conservative Party suffered heavy losses in local election results Friday, further cementing expectations that the Labour Party will return to power after 14 years in a U.K. general election that will take place in the coming months.
Labour won control of councils in England that the party hasn't held for decades and was successful in a special by-election for Parliament that, if repeated in the general election, would lead to one of the Conservatives′ biggest-ever defeats.
Though the results overall make for grim reading for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, he was able to breathe a sigh of relief when the Conservative mayor of Tees Valley in the northeast of England was reelected, albeit with a depressed share of the vote. The victory of Ben Houchen, who ran a very personal campaign, may be enough to cushion Sunak from any revolt by Conservative lawmakers.
For Keir Starmer, the Labour Party leader, it's generally been a stellar set of results, though in some areas with large Muslim populations, such as Blackburn and Oldham in northwest England, the party's candidates appear to have suffered as a result of the leadership's strongly pro-Israel stance in the conflict in Gaza.
Perhaps most important in the context of the general election, which has to take place by January but could come as soon as next month, Labour won back the parliamentary seat of Blackpool South in the northwest of England. The seat had gone Conservative in the last general election in 2019, when then Prime Minister Boris Johnson made big inroads in Brexit-supporting parts of the country.
In the contest, triggered by the resignation of a Conservative lawmaker following a lobbying scandal, Labour’s Chris Webb secured 10,825 votes, against the second-placed Conservative opponent's 3,218. The swing from Conservative to Labour, at 26%, was the third biggest since World War II, which would be more than enough to see the party return to power for the first time since it was ejected in 2010.
Starmer went to Blackpool to congratulate Webb on his success and urged Sunak to call a general election. Sunak has the power to decide on the date, and has indicated that it will be in the second half of 2024.
“This was directly to Rishi Sunak to say we are fed up with your decline, your chaos and your division and we want change," he said.
Thursday’s elections in large parts of England were important in themselves, with voters deciding who will run many aspects of their daily lives, such as garbage collection, road maintenance and local crime prevention, in the coming years. But with a general election looming, they are being viewed through a national prism.
John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, said that the results so far indicate that the Conservatives are losing around half of the seats they are trying to defend.
“We are probably looking at certainly one of the worst, if not the worst, Conservative performances in local government elections for the last 40 years,” he told BBC radio.
By midafternoon Friday, with around half of the 2,661 seats up for grabs counted, the Conservatives were down 213 while Labour was up 92. Other parties, such as the centrist Liberal Democrats and the Green Party also made gains. Reform U.K., which is trying to usurp the Conservatives from the right, also had some successes, notably in Blackpool South, where it was less than 200 votes from grabbing second place.
Labour has won in areas that voted heavily for Britain's departure from the European Union in 2016 and where it had been crushed by Brexit-backer Johnson, such as Hartlepool in the northeast of England, and Thurrock in southeast England. It also seized control of Rushmoor, a leafy and military-heavy council in the south of England where it has never won.
One bright spot for the Conservatives was the result in Tees Valley, which prior to Brexit had been a traditional Labour stronghold. However, Houchen's vote share was down nearly 20 percentage points at 54% from 2021.
Sunak struck a defiant note in Teesside as he congratulated Houchen on his victory, while admitting “disappointing” results elsewhere.
“I’ve got a message for the Labour Party too, because they know that they have to win here in order to win a general election, they know that," he said. "They assumed that Tees Valley would stroll back to them, but it didn’t.”
Sunak will be hoping Andy Street will remain mayor of the West Midlands when that result is announced on Saturday. Also Saturday, Labour's Sadiq Khan is expected to remain mayor of London, though there are some concerns being voiced that a low turnout may see him lose to Conservative opponent Susan Hall.
Sunak became prime minister in October 2022 after the short-lived tenure of his predecessor, Liz Truss, who left office after 49 days following a budget of unfunded tax cuts that roiled financial markets and sent borrowing costs for homeowners surging.
Her chaotic — and traumatic — leadership compounded the Conservatives' difficulties following the circus surrounding her predecessor Johnson, who was forced to quit after being adjudged to have lied to Parliament over coronavirus lockdown breaches at his offices in Downing Street.
Nothing Sunak has tried to do has shifted the political dial, with Labour consistently 20 percentage points ahead in opinion polls. Whether anyone else can do better than Sunak is a question that may occupy the minds of nervous Conservative lawmakers in Parliament heading into the weekend.
Conservative party candidate Lord Ben Houchen, left, with Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak following his re-election as Tees Valley Mayor in Teesside, England, Friday May 3, 2024. (Owen Humphreys/PA via AP)
Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak presents an award to a member of the Parachute Regiment as he visits the Helles Barracks at the Catterick Garrison, a military base in North Yorkshire, Britain, Friday, May 3, 2024. (Molly Darlington/Pool photo via AP)
Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak looks on as he inspects the Passing Out Parade of the Parachute Regiment recruits as he visits the Helles Barracks at the Catterick Garrison, a military base in North Yorkshire, Britain, Friday, May 3, 2024. (Molly Darlington/Pool photo via AP)
Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks as he takes part in broadcasting a clip during his visit to the Helles Barracks at the Catterick Garrison, a military base in North Yorkshire, Britain, Friday, May 3, 2024. (Molly Darlington/Pool photo via AP)
Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak smiles as he inspects the Passing Out Parade of the Parachute Regiment recruits during his visit to the Helles Barracks at the Catterick Garrison, a military base in North Yorkshire, Britain, Friday, May 3, 2024. (Molly Darlington/Pool photo via AP)
Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks as he takes part in broadcasting a clip during his visit to the Helles Barracks at the Catterick Garrison, a military base in North Yorkshire, Britain, Friday, May 3, 2024. (Molly Darlington/Pool photo via AP)
A woman holds an umbrella as she walks on Westminster Bridge over the River Thames with the clock face of Queen Elizabeth Tower in the background in London, Friday, May 3, 2024. Britain's governing Conservative Party is suffering heavy losses as local election results pour in Friday, piling pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of a U.K. general election in which the main opposition Labour Party appears increasingly likely to return to power after 14 years. The Queen Elizabeth Tower holds the bell known as Big Ben. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Tourists on a cycle tour in wet weather plastic macs, cycle past the Houses of Parliament, in London Friday, May 3, 2024. Britain's governing Conservative Party is suffering heavy losses as local election results pour in Friday, piling pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of a U.K. general election in which the main opposition Labour Party appears increasingly likely to return to power after 14 years. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
A general view of the Houses of Parliament from across the River Thames in London, Friday, May 3, 2024. Britain's governing Conservative Party is suffering heavy losses as local election results pour in Friday, piling pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of a U.K. general election in which the main opposition Labour Party appears increasingly likely to return to power after 14 years. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
A woman holds an umbrella as she walks along the banks of the River Thames opposite the Houses of Parliament in London, Friday, May 3, 2024. Britain's governing Conservative Party is suffering heavy losses as local election results pour in Friday, piling pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of a U.K. general election in which the main opposition Labour Party appears increasingly likely to return to power after 14 years. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Newly elected British Labour MP Chris Webb, right, with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer celebrating at Blackpool Cricket Club, England, Friday May 3, 2024 after being declared winner in the Blackpool South by-election. The by-election was triggered after the resignation of Scott Benton. (Peter Byrne/PA via AP)
Labour candidate Chris Webb celebrates after winning the Blackpool South by-election following the count at Blackpool Sports Centre in Blackpool, Britain, Friday, May 3, 2024. (Peter Byrne/PA via AP)
Labour candidate Chris Webb celebrates after winning the Blackpool South by-election following the count at Blackpool Sports Centre in Blackpool, Britain, Friday, May 3, 2024. (Peter Byrne/PA via AP)
FILE - A woman leaves a polling station after voting in London, Thursday, May 2, 2024. Britain's governing Conservative Party is suffering heavy losses as local election results pour in Friday, piling pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of a U.K. general election in which the main opposition Labour Party appears increasingly likely to return to power after 14 years. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)
Counting begins at the Blackpool South by-election at Blackpool Sports Centre in Blackpool, England, Thursday, May 2, 2024. The by-election was triggered after the resignation of Scott Benton. (Peter Byrne/PA via AP)
FILE - A woman pushes a buggy as she arrives to vote at a polling station in London, Thursday, May 2, 2024. Britain's governing Conservative Party is suffering heavy losses as local election results pour in Friday, piling pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of a U.K. general election in which the main opposition Labour Party appears increasingly likely to return to power after 14 years. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)
