Parental Rights Over the Education and Care of Their Kids Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. BALINT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in fierce opposition to this harmful attack on public schools.

Republicans are losing. Gas prices are skyrocketing. They have no plan to end the illegal and unpopular war in Iran. Rather than doing the work to solve these real problems, Republicans just keep going back to the same old, tired playbook of harassing trans kids and, it turns out, calling us Marxists.

This time they want to give the Trump administration broad authority to cut off Federal public school funding if a school teaches or advances anything that the administration deems to be gender ideology.

Mr. Speaker, this could be anything.

A teacher doesn't get parental consent before using a student's nickname on a school form; a book in their library includes a transgender character; a teacher has a Pride Flag hanging in the classroom.

As the parent of two teenagers myself and as a former public school teacher, I want all kids to be protected and supported at school as they learn, as they grow, and as they figure out who they are.

For this reason, at the appropriate time, I will offer a motion to recommit this bill back to committee.

If the House rules had permitted it, I would have offered this motion with an important amendment to this bill. My amendment would prevent this bill from taking effect until the Secretary of Education proves that the Department is taking the necessary steps to protect women and girls from sexual harassment and violence.

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Ms. BALINT. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record as well a letter opposing the bill from the American Booksellers Association.

Honorable Members of the US House of Representatives: I write on behalf of the American Booksellers Association, the trade association of independent bookstores representing over 3,200 bookstore companies nationwide, to express our deep concern with H.R. 2616. This book censorship bill would chill expression across the book industry, hurt small businesses, and decrease the variety of books in the marketplace.

H.R. 2616 is a national book ban bill, and even its authors likely cannot say where the banning will stop. The prohibition on use of ESEA funds to ``teach or advance gender ideology'' could impact everything from picture books about crayons to Plato's Symposium, and it appears to apply to library materials as well as curriculum. The key term, ``gender ideology,'' is defined only in an executive order that has not been approved by Congress and could change in future administrations. It is not radical to say we should know what a law does before we pass it.

Attacking ESEA funding, the largest source of federal funding to public schools, defunds schools that are already struggling, which also impacts the bookstores that serve them. This vague bill would stymie or halt spending on all books, regardless of content, as already-overburdened school districts struggled to comply. Bookstores that supply local districts with library materials, book fairs, and author visits will see a massive decrease in book purchases. In states where book bans are most common, booksellers have been forced to shrink or discontinue their school programs, impacting jobs and local economies.

We have alread started to see less diversity in the book market due to book bans. School and library sales are essential parts of the publishing ecosystem. When stories are banned from that marketplace, authors are silenced and have their livelihoods threatened. Book ban laws censor age- appropriate stories that people just do not want told, increasingly target history, and disproportionately impact people of color, LGBTQIA2S+ people, and people with disabilities. Loss of market diversity hurts readers as consumers, as thinkers, and as human beings.

For the sake of small businesses and their employees, the communities they enrich, the parents who want their kids to learn about the world as it is through the safety of a kids book, and the kids who just want to get back to their books, please vote against this bill. Sincerely, Philomena Polefrone, Ph.D., Associate Director of Advocacy, American Booksellers Association.

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Ms. BALINT. Mr. Speaker, I hope that my colleagues will join me in voting for the motion to recommit. This is once again government overreach.

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Ms. BALINT. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

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