On October 1, the Albany County School Board held a meeting where they invited two local lawmakers to talk about legislation currently being considered on the Joint Judiciary Committee that would ban certain books in public and school libraries.
To make the bill even worse, it allows members of the public to sue libraries, up to $50,000, if the member of the public somehow feel “wronged” by a book.
Everyone who spoke up during the meeting opposed the current legislation, including the lawmakers in attendance. Sen. Gary Crum and Rep. Ken Chestek both serve on the Joint Judiciary Committee, and will be voting on the committee bill next week.
Rep. Chestek talked about how he opposed the bill no matter what, and Sen. Crum opposes it in its current form.
In his role as Albany County School Board Trustee, Better Wyoming director Nate Martin called out the bill alongside other legislation that has been recently pushed that would harm public schools.
“It’s not about protecting children,” Martin said. “The intent of the law is to tear down public education. It’s not a coincidence that this law comes forward at the same time that laws come forward to pull money away from public schools and give them to vouchers, and laws come forward to say that teachers don’t need to be certified in order to teach, and so on and so forth. It’s part of the same package.”
Better Wyoming volunteers and a number of teachers, parents, and library staff all spoke out about how dangerous and unworkable the proposed law is.
They pointed out that the bill’s vague language would force schools and libraries to pull valuable educational materials off the shelves just to avoid the threat of lawsuits. Others highlighted how this book ban would also censor vital resources around mental health and books for LGBTQ+ youth, who are a frequent target in efforts to ban books.
You can watch the whole meeting and all of the public comments here.
On Monday morning, Oct. 13, the Joint Judiciary Committee is scheduled to meet in Cheyenne to make their final considerations and amendments to this draft bill. In order to move on to the 2026 Budget Session a majority of committee members need to vote on the bill.
We know that there are still some committee members on the fence, so there is still a chance that this bill can die in committee. Email the Joint Judiciary Committee today and tell them NO BOOK BANS!
Read more about previous Better Wyoming’s actions to fight book banning, or read more about this Albany County School Board meeting in the Laramie Reporter article and in the Laramie Boomerang.
