Gov. Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota vetoed a bill this week that would have required most libraries in the state to keep material considered sexually explicit in areas difficult for minors to access. Under the measure, librarians who do not comply could have faced prosecution.
Mr. Armstrong, a Republican former congressman in his first year as governor, said in his veto message that the bill “represents a misguided attempt to legislate morality through overreach and censorship.”
“The bill imposes vague and punitive burdens on professionals,” Mr. Armstrong added in a letter dated Tuesday, “and opens the door to a host of unintended and damaging consequences for our communities.”
The legislature could override the veto with a two-thirds vote in both the Senate and House, but the bill passed the House with a narrow, 49-to-45 majority. Republicans hold large majorities in both chambers.
The legislation was part of a broader push by conservatives to restrict access to library books that they consider inappropriate for children, an effort that has alarmed many librarians and free speech advocates. New library laws or regulations have been approved in recent years in several Republican-led states, including Idaho, Iowa, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah.
North Dakota Republicans have been split on the issue. In 2023, former Gov. Doug Burgum, a Republican, signed a measure that required explicit materials to be removed from the children’s sections of libraries. But Mr. Burgum, who is now the interior secretary, vetoed a bill that would have imposed criminal penalties on librarians found guilty of willfully exposing minors to sexually explicit materials.
The bill passed this year was somewhat less punitive than the one Mr. Burgum had vetoed, and it would have given librarians a 10-day period to move materials that a local prosecutor found to be obscene. Only if a librarian failed to comply during that period could they have faced criminal charges.
In legislative hearings, Republican supporters defended the bill as a way to protect children from inappropriate or harmful content. Some lawmakers cited examples of North Dakota libraries stocking materials with sexual themes and illustrations that they found offensive, and complained that librarians often failed to take parents’ complaints about books seriously.
“We are harming our children, that’s all there is to it,” State Senator Keith Boehm, a Republican, said in a committee hearing. “The bill is all about protecting kids from this material. It has nothing against adults.”
In his veto message, Mr. Armstrong expressed concern about important works that had been targeted by obscenity laws across the country.
“I don’t pretend to know what the next literary masterpiece is going to be,” Mr. Armstrong said. “But I know that I want it available in a library. And if a parent doesn’t think it is age appropriate for their child, then that is a parenting decision.”
Opponents warned that the measure would have had a chilling effect on librarians. In a letter urging Mr. Armstrong to veto the bill, Andrea Placher, the president of the North Dakota Library Association, said the bill “challenges the fundamental principles of libraries in the United States, which are built on the ideals of free and open access to diverse information.”
Ms. Placher said “no librarian can reasonably be expected to assume the risk of criminal prosecution and loss of state funding because some unknown citizen deems what is on display in the librarian’s collection objectionable.”
The bill would have applied to public libraries and libraries in public schools. University libraries and art museums would have been exempt.
