To Catch a Library

September 29, 2023

This week, Kootenai County, Idaho, Sheriff Bob Norris publicly announced that he went to the library and checked out some books.

While there is some confusion about when Norris went to the library and why (because of conflicting stories), it seems certain things are clear. According to the sheriff, in April of 2023, he went to two local libraries – neither one in Coeur d’Alene, the biggest city in his count,y and one that has its own city police – once bringing a camera with him. “I wanted to see for myself what was going on,” he told the local press. He was in the library for about 30 minutes.

It appears he checked out two books, both from the young adult section: “Deal with it! A whole new approach to your body, brain and life as a gurl," by Esther Drill, Heather McDonald, and Rebecca Odes, and "Identical" by Ellen Hopkins. Norris says that he found other objectionable books, but didn’t check them out. According to the sheriff, he will not return the two books; instead, he used them as props at a town hall meeting earlier in September.

The root of Norris’s library trip is a piece of legislation vetoed by the governor last year. House Bill 314a, which was passed by both chambers of the state legislature, would have allowed parents to sue schools or libraries for a statutory amount of $2,500 for allowing children to access any materials with “sexual conduct” or deemed “harmful to minors.”

Norris implied that he was open to investigating “if there is a criminal dynamic to people who expose young children to this type of material,” comparing it to adults who expose kids to illegal drugs. (Never mind that these books were both in the “young adult” section, which is for 15-18 year olds.) He seems to think that “sexual content” might cause teens to “experiment” and, therefore, commit crimes. (“Deal with it” appears to largely have content on masturbation which…is still legal as far as I know?)

Norris is the latest sheriff to center library books as part of an ongoing harassment campaign some far-right groups are waging against librarians. This appears to be part of his “listening and learning” tour since he took office in 2020. Norris, a retired Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department employee, ran as a “law-and-order” GOP candidate and threatened to be extremely aggressive with protestors.

In April of 2022, Norris appeared onstage with a group of white supremacists at a Republican fundraiser that featured white supremacist Dave Reilly. (Reilly was at the Unite the Right in Charlottesville and has been trying to turn the entire county into a far-right paradise.) While Norris was part of a multi-agency effort that prevented violence at the June Coeur D’Alene Pride event, he has not clarified why he was at the spring rally with a bunch of Proud Boys and militia members.

In a town hall meeting earlier in September, Norris discussed a variety of issues, including various Idaho legislative proposals. He also made the argument that an increasing number of immigrants were hurting the county because people now have to speak Spanish “once a week.” He then gave the audience a survey, with results that he shared publicly, once again reminding us:  data-based policing will not save us.

ICYMI

This week, in my first story for The Assembly, I describe my visit to a Constitutional Sheriffs And Peace Officers Association training in Western North Carolina as well as Richard Mack’s plans to enter new states (now that he’s been kicked out of Texas).