What is a book burner to do when that pesky United States’ Constitution gets in the way of their censorship attempts? Get laws passed that circumvent them, of course.

This week is a look at some of the legislation recently enacted to take away the freedoms granted to citizens of the United States by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

We begin in Florida, where HB899 and SB1018 would grant any taxpayer the right to formally challenge school materials and even take a school board to court over an unsatisfactory decision. The bills would also seek to place parents- whether qualified or not on the subjects- to have a say on textbook selection committees.

We also have a situation in Michigan, where an informed citizenry is so feared that Governor Rick Snyder on Wednesday signed Bill 571, which will bar public officials from informing citizens about any upcoming ballot issues.

It was the last piece of business to pass the Legislature in December, which went from thirteen to a completely rewritten fifty-three pages in the final minutes and was passed with no public hearings on the many changes and with only Republican votes on the matter.

The bill was originally a simple regulation of campaign finance before being buried in sly wording on the speech restrictions. The intended purpose lost amid page after page of ideological and state-sponsored censorship, which carries a fine of thousands of dollars and up to a year in jail that is nothing short of a gag order which will prohibit officials from publicly discussing ballot proposals or millage issues in the sixty days leading up to an election. It has been blasted by municipal and school district officials as a violation of free speech.

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http://bbark.deepforestproductions.com/column/2016/01/10/banned-books-awareness-the-politics-of-state-sponsored-censorship/