BISMARCK – The Speaker of the North Dakota State House, Rep. Dennis Johnson, R-Dis. 15, Devils Lake, decided Wednesday not to allow certain materials to be handed out to House members, saying they were inappropriate.
Rep. Scott Dyk, R-Dis. 23, Williston, told The Dakotan he attempted to hand out materials from a book titled “Let’s Talk About It” to each House member. Many Republicans say the book is in some public libraries in North Dakota, accessible to children. Dyk covered the materials with a white sheet of paper and the message “Beware.”
The same day the Senate, on a 33 to 14 vote, overrode Gov. Doug Burgum’s veto of Senate Bill 2360 which seeks to require sexually explicit material be kept away from children in tax funded areas and provides a class B misdemeanor to any employee of those agencies who willfully places that material where it is accessible to children. The House is expected to vote on the veto this week, needing 2/3rds to override. The House originally passed the bill 54-38.
When the House passed the bill before the governor’s veto last week, Rep. Jim Kasper, R-Dis. 46, Fargo, attempted to read some chapters in the Let’s Talk About It book, but was gaveled down by Johnson.
“I was kind of looking at the Speaker going, yeah, he’s having a hard time with the reality of the content,” said Dyk. “For a lot of people his age, and everybody in general hopefully, they get squeamish. As well they should, but when it’s in our libraries available to minors, I don’t know what he can or can’t do, but as the Speaker of the House, if he can gavel that down he ought to be able to say hey we need to be able to pass this. He did vote for it, he just can’t handle the vulgarity of it.”
Johnson told The Dakota he believes most of the members understand the point without the need to see those materials.
“I don’t think anybody over 50 years knows the depth that pornography has gone to,” said Dyk.
“He had the books distributed, and one of the Sergeant at Arms asked me if this is appropriate, and I saw them, and I said no, we don’t need stuff like this in the assembly,” said Johnson. “I said pick them up and get rid of them. That was my discretion. I maintain the decorum of the House and I didn’t think that was appropriate.”
Johnson said he understands that Dyk was probably trying to demonstrate what was in some of the books.
“I think we had heard enough about that,” said Johnson.
Johnson voted in favor of SB2360.
The governor did sign House Bill 1205 which is similar to SB2360. The sponsor of SB2360, Sen. Keith Boehm, R-Dis. 33, Mandan, said that HB1205 is similar but only deals with public libraries and not public schools. He also said SB2360 includes the Miller test which he says is a well established obscenity test. Boehm has also said there are 150 books in contention in North Dakota.
Several libraries have come up with different fiscal notes varying from $450,000 to $300 million, measuring the potential financial impact SB2360 may have on the libraries. The reason for the fiscal notes is that it would take extra staff to sift through the books. Proponents of SB2360 argue the fiscal notes are false and that librarians could separate the books in an afternoon, as they already know which books to separate from children based on the Miller test.
