Last week, the Texas Senate K-16 Education Committee voted 10-1 (Senator José Menéndez was the lone dissenting vote) to send SB13 to the full Senate for a vote. 

Senate Bill 13- which is Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's priority bill to "guard against inappropriate books in public schools" is listed on the Regular Order of Business and likely to be taken up for a vote by the full Texas senate very soon.

Act now, before it's too late. 

The Texas Senate K-16 Education Committee will hold a committee meeting and public hearing on a number of proposed senate bills on Thursday, February 27.

The meeting is scheduled to start around 10am, and may last all day. Members of the public are invited to provide testimony on the bills listed on the hearing notice- including Senate Bill 13- which is Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's priority bill to "guard against inappropriate books in public schools."

So now is the time to make plans to travel to Austin, and/or start emailing your elected representatives and committee members.

{Originally published by Frank Strong on his Substack: Anger & Clarity} On Wednesday, Texas State Senator Angela Paxton filed SB13, a bill that was listed as one of Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick’s legislative priorities for this session with the purpose of “guarding against inappropriate books in public schools.”

The full text of the bill is available here. Every Republican member of the Senate is listed as co-author.

Here at Texas Freedom to Read Project we often feel disappointed and dismayed at the censorship attempts we see across the state, but we rarely feel surprised. However, this week, we learned about an incident that floored us. Thanks to the work of a concerned citizen, we discovered that the Montgomery County Citizens Review Committee (completely void of librarians) has ordered a juvenile nonfiction book- that documents American history from the perspective of the Wampanoag tribe-to be moved from the Juvenile Nonfiction Collection to the Fiction Collection of the Montgomery County Memorial Public Library.

In recent years, Texas has been involved in many debates over banning books in educational institutions and public libraries. Advocates argue that such actions are vital for shielding young minds from objectionable content, while critics say that book banning undermines intellectual freedom and overlooks the root problem of literacy. Texas faces a significant literacy challenge, often called an "illiteracy" problem. However, banning books is not the remedy for this issue. Instead, there are more effective strategies for enhancing literacy rates among Texas residents.

Texas is at the forefront of restricting one of the most fundamental rights we enjoy in the United States.

By passing laws like HB900, our politicians have decided it’s their job to legislate whose stories can be told, and what books we are allowed- and not allowed- to read. 

At the Texas Freedom to Read Project, we believe this notion to be fundamentally untrue.  To us, the First Amendment is essential to a free society.  The ability to freely exchange ideas, to speak out, to listen in return, to write and to read without the government telling us what we are or are not allowed to say or not say—that is true liberty.