Republican state lawmakers in Missouri have threatened to defund all of the state’s public libraries in a drastic budget proposal that has magnified the accelerating state-level campaigns against libraries over books and materials with LGBT+ people and themes.

The state’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted on a state budget proposal last week that sets the library’s budget at zero, eliminating millions of dollars for the state’s libraries.

Lawmakers in Missouri’s state Senate, however, plan to put $4.5m back into the budget proposal that was stripped out of the House version of the spending plan.

Missouri’s legislative debate over library funding follows a recently enacted state law that broadly bans educators from “providing sexually explicit material” to students, punishable by up to a $2,000 fine or a year in jail.

That language has had a chilling effect in schools and libraries across the state, where officials preemptively removed titles over fears that right-wing activists would mount money-draining legal challenges against them, according to civil rights advocacy group PEN America. Between August and November, state authorities banned more than 300 books in at least 11 school districts, the group found.

In February, the ACLU of Missouri, the Missouri Association […]