HB 900 Passes in the House, Moves to Senate

We’ve had a huge victory in the battle to ensure that our schools educate, not indoctrinate. HB 900 (Patterson) passed the Texas House and is now on its way over to the Senate.

HB 900, also known as the READER Act, mandates vendors who sell books to our schools be required to label any sexually explicit book as such; it also requires local review and reporting, among other protections.

The bill passed 95-52.

If this bill passes the Senate, books rated as “sexually explicit” will not be allowed in Texas school libraries.

In the recent rise of awareness on this issue, the READER Act attracted bipartisan support, most notably from Rep. Shawn Thierry.

Rep. Thierry gave a passionate testimony on the House floor during debate on the bill.

Thierry alluded to a situation with her daughter, who brought home a book which encouraged young children to talk to and even meet strangers from the internet, among other things. “Nobody wants to take away books that will help kids, but we need guardrails. Somewhere along the way, these books infiltrated our schools.”

Unfortunately, Rep. Thierry was the only vocal Democrat to testify in favor of HB 900. Others, such as Rep. Rosenthal likened taking sexually explicit materials out of the hands of children to Nazi Germany book burnings.

While we celebrate the victory of Rep. Jared Patterson’s bill passage, we should take note of all those who voted against this bill, and remember that our fight is far from over.