Iowa's book banners are writing a new chapter
Also, debunking the 6% hoax
Two years ago, they told us it wasn’t a book ban.
The law prohibiting certain books in school libraries was simply a way to keep filth out of the hands of kids.
It wasn’t a book ban, they insisted, because the books in question were still available at the local public library.
Not for long.
Statehouse Republicans are now pursuing a new book ban—this one aimed right at Iowa’s public libraries.
Their proposal would prohibit librarians from selecting or purchasing materials that contain “descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act …”
It doesn’t matter if it’s a brief passage, or even a vague description of sexual activity. It doesn’t matter what the overall content of the book is. Some legislative Republicans have decided among themselves that you shouldn’t get to see these books at your local library.
This isn’t the only bill aimed at intimidating libraries and controlling what you can read. There are others. But don’t call it a book ban, they say. You can still buy these books online or at your local bookstore, they say.
Yeah, right.
If there’s one thing we know about Republican domination of state government, it’s this: Their thirst for control over our lives is never-ending.
It’s not just libraries they’re trying to control, either. Iowa’s official distributors of freedom are spreading a wide net over our state.
Just look at the bills under consideration in this year’s legislative session:
Not satisfied with stopping diversity efforts at state-run universities, legislative Republicans have proposed a new bill aimed at banning such efforts at private colleges. Republicans in Des Moines hate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives so much that they want to use their financial muscle to force their will on private institutions.
Another bill would force political parties to run their private caucuses the way Statehouse Republicans want them run. They’ve tried this before, and now they’re trying again—even though this bill is probably unconstitutional.
Republicans also aren’t happy they can’t win supervisor elections in some of Iowa’s urban areas, so they’re proposing rigging the election laws to make it easier for their right-wing colleagues to win in these places. It doesn’t matter if the people in liberal areas, like Johnson or Story counties, would rather vote for a Democrat, Statehouse Republicans want their friends on these county boards. Sorry, freedom.
Another GOP bill introduced this year would ban mRNA vaccines, which include Covid vaccines.
You read that right. It doesn’t matter whether one of these vaccines saved your life. It doesn’t matter whether you’re old and at risk. Some Republican lawmaker doesn’t like these vaccines, so he wants to ban them.
Will it pass? I suspect not, but I also never suspected Iowa would rank second in the nation in book banning.
This list goes on, and it won’t end.
That’s the thing about power: Republicans have held complete control in Des Moines for so many years, they can’t stop themselves. Their thirst for dominance over our lives can’t be quenched.
So, you have these threats—including against public libraries; against our freedom to read what we want.
These GOP proposals are again cloaked in language aimed at selling the idea that they’re merely keeping obscene material out of the hands of kids. But as a federal judge wrote about the school book ban more than a year ago, there were other, far less intrusive, ways to accomplish this goal.
Instead, we got a ban so overbroad and intimidating that more than 3,400 books were taken off the shelves at school libraries—and not just books little kids should not have seen. Many of the censored books were classics. “To Kill a Mockingbird” was one of them.
High school juniors and seniors, who are exposed to a lot worse on the Internet—and elsewhere—were cheated out of access to a range of ideas at their school library just because some Republican lawmakers decided they wanted more control over their lives.
But don’t call it a book ban, they said. People can still go to their public library, right?
Except now, public libraries are under threat.
This new bill isn’t a book ban, either, they insist.
Iowans can still go to their local bookstore or online, they say.
Do you believe that?
I wouldn’t.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned about Iowa’s book banners, it’s this: They’ll surely write another chapter once this one is finished.
The 6% hoax
I was happy to see an article in ProPublica on Monday, prominently debunking Joni Ernst’s false claim that only 6% of federal employees actually report to the office full-time.
This laughably bogus figure got a lot of traction in December after Ernst issued a report featuring this and other misstatements about the federal workforce.
Mostly, this happened because right-wing media ran with it. That’s not unexpected, but even some real media fell for it, too.
As readers of this newsletter know, I called out this nonsense almost immediately. Since then, a few others have debunked it, too. (A government report last year showed that only 10% of federal workers are fully remote, and 80% of the working hours for the rest were performed on site.)
I bring this topic up today because I was intrigued by a passage in the ProPublica article in which an editor at Federal News Network, where the 6% figure first appeared, said they were surprised at how it was used.
Jared Serbu, the deputy editor of Federal News Network, said he and his colleagues were taken aback by how his organization’s clearly unscientific survey had somehow been transformed into a defining statistic about federal employees.
“It was a survey of our niche audience for our niche audience,” Serbu said. “Nobody’s ever been confused about it before this.”
Let’s be honest here: Nobody is confused. The right-wingers spreading this rubbish, whether it’s in the media or in Congress, know the 6% figure is bogus. No person with half a measure of common sense would believe it.
Still, it stokes the fires of hatred toward the federal workforce, so it gets repeated. Just two weeks ago, the White House used it in a “fact sheet.”
I’m happy ProPublica featured the 6% hoax in a story that ran prominently on its website this week. Now, if only more Iowa media would do so. This foul deed started with an Iowan. Iowans should be more aggressive in calling it out.
It’s time for the Office Lounge
The end of February is just around the corner, and that means it’s time for the Office Lounge.
This is the once-monthly Zoom meeting where members of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative meet with their paying subscribers. The writers discuss their work, and paying subscribers get a chance to offer suggestions and ask questions.
This month’s meeting will be Friday, Feb. 28, at noon. The link to the meeting is below.
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