BISMARCK, N.D. (KFGO) – Governor Doug Burgum has issued the seventh veto of this legislative session, this time rejecting a Senate bill that would have mandated that North Dakota’s public libraries, including school libraries, review their collections for sexually explicit material and criminalized the display of such material.
In a letter accompanying his veto, Burgum said the bill goes too far in criminalizing potential disagreements over what constitutes material that is harmful to minors.
“Senate Bill 2360…creates an enormous burden…by imposing though the threat of criminal prosecution, a de facto requirement that libraries conduct an expensive review of library materials that have already been through a screening process to protect young people from objectionable material,” he said.
Burgum noted a fiscal note prepared by the State Library which outlined numerous, substantial costs for compliance with the bill, including additional staff, extra cataloging, and new software systems.
“America is built on a foundation of freedom of speech, the free exchange of ideas, and the freedom from government interference to read – or not to read – books that share ideas and stories across the spectrum of human nature and experience,” he said.
The Senate overrode Burgum’s veto by one vote on Wednesday afternoon. The House has yet to reconsider the bill but the original House vote approving SB 2360 fell several votes shy of the necessary two-thirds majority to override.
Burgum did sign House Bill 1205 which prohibits books containing sexually explicit material from being kept in children’s collections in libraries. He said that bill only standardizes a process that is already in place and working at nearly all libraries across the state.
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