Arkansas Republicans just fired the state's Library Board to please one Christian Nationalist
Jason Rapert’s year-long crusade against public libraries has finally paid off
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Arkansas Republicans passed a bill this week allowing Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders to fire everyone on the State Library Board because they weren’t doing enough to ban books. It comes after constant protests to do just that by Christian Nationalist and former lawmaker Jason Rapert.
In case that name doesn’t ring a bell, here’s a crash course: Rapert served as a state senator in Arkansas for 12 years, helping push through ultra-conservative legislation. He also (infamously) installed a Ten Commandments monument outside the Capitol in 2017—inspiring legal challenges that continue to this day. In 2022, he chose to give up his seat to run for lieutenant governor… only to get crushed in the GOP primary.
Since then, Rapert has spent most of his time running a group called the “National Association of Christian Lawmakers,” bringing together fellow theocrats to promote fictional histories about the supposed faith-based founding of our country and encourage them to file pro-Christian legislation in their respective states.
But in 2023, he returned to the political arena.
That November, Gov. Sanders appointed Rapert to the Arkansas State Library Board, a relatively unknown group that controls some of the funding that goes to libraries across the state. By putting him on the seven-member board, which meets every three months, the writing on the wall was clear: This would be a new way for conservatives to fight their insane culture war battles.
One of Rapert’s first acts was to propose blocking funding for three giant library systems that sued the state after legislators passed what amounted to an obscenity law. Act 372 of 2023 was intended to keep harmful content out of the hands of children, but what counted as harmful was never properly defined. It also punished librarians who allowed kids to check out those books. Critics rightly argued this amounted to censorship and a judge prevented the law from going into effect.
Rapert argued that three of the 18 plaintiffs in that case—the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS), the Fayetteville Public Library, and the Eureka Springs Public Library—should be barred from receiving any public dollars until the case was resolved.
The good news was that the other six members of the board, including the other person Sanders appointed alongside Rapert, refused to let those libraries become pawns in Rapert’s game. One of them said, “If we did withhold funds, that would not only hurt the library as a building or as an agency, but it would hurt the entire community.”
Eventually, the board unanimously approved giving the state funds to all eligible libraries. That included over $200,000 to the library systems in question.
That’s just one example of how Rapert has been trying to destroy public libraries and the people who rely on them—for information, for community spaces, and for jobs. And this entire time, he’s been outnumbered by more sensible members of the board. It became so frustrating to him that, last year, he complained that the library board had become a “hostile work environment” because everyone hated the fact that he was a “Christian white male.” (Life is so hard for white Christian men. Everyone spare some thoughts and prayers on behalf of the most persecuted people in the world.)
One of the reasons it was frustrating to him is because the board’s makeup only changed once a year. Even if Sanders appointed ultra-conservatives to those seats, it would take a few years before the Christian extremists held a majority of seats.
It’s not like they would have had to wait very long, though. When the board met last month, there were two motions from Rapert on the table: One to withhold “sexually explicit” material from children and another to sever ties between the State Library and the American Library Association. Both motions failed 4-3. In other words, conservatives were on the verge of a majority. They just needed to wait a bit longer before they could impose their will over the protests of librarians who actually know what they’re doing.
Rapert was tired of waiting.
So he proposed a solution: State lawmakers should eliminate the board entirely and hand total control of library funding to the Republicans who run the state.
After spending 1 year on this board, I am of the opinion that the state of Arkansas would be better served if the Arkansas Legislature would abolish the board completely and turn over all responsibility and authority for distributing the library funding to the Secretary of Education and the Department of Education. Each appointed member of this 7 member board is appointed to serve a 7 year term. It will take years for Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders to replace enough members on this board to make a difference. The children of Arkansas need the Arkansas Legislature to take a stand. Parents trust that they can allow their children to enjoy public libraries without them being subjected to sexually explicit materials. I implore the members of the Arkansas legislature to take action to abolish this board and turn over the authority to the Secretary of Education and the Department of Education, or at a minimum abolish the board and reconstitute it as we have done with other boards while I served in the Arkansas legislature.
I have faith that there is a majority of members in the Arkansas legislature with common sense and a good moral compass to do the right thing.
That gambit has now paid off.
On Tuesday, Republicans passed Senate Bill 640, which fires everyone on the current board and allows Gov. Sanders to appoint all their replacements.
The bill was filed just over a week ago but it was passed by the Senate (28-4) and House (60-29) extremely quickly. (A similar bill failed in committee. That one would have given the Department of Education the power to replace the board members. The bill that passed gives Gov. Sanders sole authority to name replacements.)
Democrats didn’t have the numbers to stop the bill but they spoke out against it:
Speaking on the House floor, Rep. Andrew Collins, D-Little Rock, said the bill shows that lawmakers will “allow our boards to be bullied and then dismissed.”
“To fire a board because it doesn’t bow to the whims of one of us is just not the way this process is supposed to work. They genuinely were doing their job in the way they thought was best, and that’s what we should expect of any board,” Collins said.
Bowing down to the whims of conservative extremists, however, is the only quality that now matters to the MAGA base. They’ll now get what they want and libraries across the state—and the people they serve—will suffer as a result.
Jason Rapert’s goal to further dismantle the state’s public library system has succeeded.
He celebrated the victory—for himself, not the people of Arkansas—by posting “My mission was accomplished.”
The Arkansas State Library Board will be completely reconstituted with all new members after over one year of inaction by the liberal members of the board who refused to protect minor children from sexually explicit materials. This is a victory. Thank you to the #Arkansas legislature for taking action and passing SB640 by Sen. Dismang and Rep. Beaty. My mission was accomplished. Now hopefully we will get a new state library board that knows it is wrong to allow sexually explicit materials to be accessible by children. Special thanks to Sen. Dan Sullivan for fighting the good fight and for all the members who voted for the legislation. I hope this signals to all concerned that we are tired of the woke ideologies of the political left in our state. It is just common sense to keep sexually explicit books out of the reach of children.
To state the obvious, he doesn’t actually care about sexually explicit material. He doesn’t like that kids might read books that humanize LGBTQ people or describe youthful curiosity and exploration in regards to sex. In the past, the list of “objectionable” books he wanted removed from shelves included Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe and This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson. The Arkansas Times noted that Rapert “chose to focus on books with LGBQT+ themes and not those with extreme violence or steamy heterosexual sex scenes.”
If Rapert wants to prevent kids from reading books that include depictions of rape and sex, then he should start with the Bible and vow to go after every pastor in the state. But of course he won’t because his religion always gets an exception. It’s everyone else who has to suffer because he’s too immature to handle tough topics.
And now, because of Republicans, more people in Arkansas will be emotionally stunted in the same way.
(via Right Wing Watch. Portions of this article were posted earlier)
Sexually explicit material, Rape-y? You ever actually read your bible? Start by banning that one.
It is really horrifying when one individual can make the determination of what books are allowed into public libraries. Few people disgust me more than the Christians who think their religion entitles them to a say in other people's personal choices. I'm sure the religious right will be slapping one another on their back in celebration, but their actions are just one more reason for businesses not to locate in their state. Right across the board, the Bible Belt South has some of the worst social metrics in the country, and they just keep making things worse for themselves.