Thomas Hofeller was the mastermind behind REDMAP, the took used by
Republican dirty-tricksters to redraw state electoral maps after the
2010 census in order to deliver state and federal legislative seats to
Republicans even when the majority of people voted Democrats.
Hofeller was a secretive sociopath and had long been estranged from his
daughter, Stephanie, a self-described anarchist who only discovered her
father had died in 2018 when she read the obit pages of the New York Times.
When Stephanie recovered her father’s possessions from his home, she
came into possession of files detailing the REDMAP plans, files of the
sort that he had long exhorted his co-conspirators not to create or
retain.
Stephanie turned some of her father’s files over to the government
watchdog Common Cause for use in a lawsuit over North Carolina’s
redistricting; thanks to the frank admission of racially motivated voter
suppression in Thomas’s files, the court found that NC’s redistricting
was illegal.
(New York,
NY) – A bill proposed in Missouri this month represents a transparent,
shameful attempt to legalize book banning in public libraries within the
state, PEN America said today.
The bill — the Parental Oversight of Public Libraries Act or House Bill 2044
— aims to add several provisions to the state’s funding law for public
libraries. These new provisions establish “parental library review
boards” that would evaluate whether any library materials constitute
“age-inappropriate sexual material.” Members of these five-member
boards, who would be elected at a town meeting by a simple majority of
voters, are empowered to determine whether material is appropriate,
including by evaluating its literary merit. Public librarians are
explicitly barred by the statute from serving on such review boards,
even if they are from the community.
“This is a shockingly transparent attempt to legalize book banning in the state of Missouri,” said James Tager,
deputy director of Free Expression Research and Policy at PEN America.
“This act is clearly aimed at empowering small groups of parents to
appoint themselves as censors over their state’s public libraries. Books
wrestling with sexual themes, books uplifting LGBTQIA+ characters,
books addressing issues such as sexual assault — all of these books are
potentially on the chopping block if this bill is passed.”
Under the act, the boards would hold public hearings to receive
suggestions as to possible inappropriate books, and would have the
authority to order the library to remove any such material from access
by minors. Any public library who allows minors access to such
“age-inappropriate materials” would have their funding stripped, and
librarians who refuse to comply with the act can be fined and imprisoned
for up to one year.
“Every reader and writer in the country should be horrified,
absolutely horrified, at this bill,” said PEN America’s Tager. “The fact
that a librarian could actually be imprisoned under this act for
following his or her conscience and refusing to block minors from access
to a book, that tells you all you need to know about the suitability of
this act within a democratic society.”
PEN America, an organization of writers and readers formed in 1922,
has fought against book bans for almost 100 years. PEN America is a
member organization of the National Coalition Against Censorship and is also affiliated with Banned Books Week,
the yearly campaign to highlight the phenomenon of banned books and to
push back against censorship in U.S. schools, libraries, and other
spaces.
PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human
rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. We
champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to
transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to
celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it
possible.
CONTACT: Stephen Fee, Director of Communications, sfee@pen.org, +1 202 309 8892
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