ADE not involved with book ban bill
The Legislature is trying to ban books and the Department of Education claims it's not involved.
QAnon-affiliated State Sen. Justine Wadsack, last seen lying about the Arizona State Bar, wants Arizona to ban books in K-12 schools that promote “gender fluidity or gender pronouns.”
Her bill, SB1700, would direct the Department of Education under Republican Tom Horne, to come up with said list that would ban books.
Although, according to ADE, it doesn’t appear Horne asked for the bill nor has he or other senior staff been in contact with Wadsack regarding SB1700, according to communication records.
When asked for a preliminary (or other) list of potentially banned books Horne might have already come up with, ADE communications director Doug Nick said, “[SB1700 is] not an ADE bill and we have no list of that kind.”
Here’s a PEN America list of the most banned books across the country in 2022, which includes a book from Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison that was banned in 22 states.
While PEN has good lists that would likely become a starting point in Arizona, Republicans almost definitely won’t get their chance to ban any books while Governor Katie Hobbs sits on the Ninth Floor.
But Republicans (for the most part) know this. The attempt is still dangerous to many in the LGBTQ community in Arizona though as Republican lawmakers still refuse to accept the existence of transgender people.
The attempt is also of course part of a larger trend across the U.S. as part of the “culture wars” and Arizona will always be apart of the national trends that make us look like an embarrassment.
Since, at least for now, we won’t have a potential Horne banned books list, we can also recognize another situation of a legislator not speaking to the person/office she wants to be put in this position of great authority.
Wadsack and ADE communication records did not turn up with anything meaning the two parties did not speak between the legislative kick off in January up until March 9 (the day the bill passed through the Senate Education Committee).
I asked for:
“email and text records between SPI Tom Horne, Margaret Garcia Dugan, Art Harding, Michelle Udall, Christine Accurso, Maria Syms and Catherine Barrett with Senator Justine Wadsack between Jan 1 through March 9, 2023.”
There was one communication record that was eventually turned over in a separate request between Wadsack and Christine Accurso, the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts director, but it was unrelated to book banning.1
“We have checked and there are no documents responsive to your first request,” ADE communications director Doug Nick said.
I also put in a similar request with the State Senate which confirmed there was no communication between the parties, but there was several emails sent by Melissa Taylor, the former Senate Chief of Staff and current ADE lobbyist, to Senate members which includes Wadsack. Those all were regarding ESA data2 and bills.
Will probably have another story coming soon on ESA stuff.
See number one