CNN —
The CEO of the largest independent bookstore in Texas oversees a four-story, 40,000-square-foot space in Austin and the 100 employees who staff it.
BookPeople CEO Charley Rejsek said she has time to read about 30 books a year — but doesn’t have the time to read and rate the thousands of books she might sell to a school, nor does she have the money to pay someone else to.
But a new Texas law might require her to.
Book vendors selling to Texas public schools, ranging from national sellers like Amazon to local bookstores with eight employees, must now rate all the books they sell based on sexual content, according to new legislation signed into law on June 12.
If the book vendor fails to comply with state library standards that will be in place by January 1, 2024, they’d be barred from selling to Texas public schools.
“We’re losing all school business forever. That’s how it’s going to hurt us,” Rejsek said.
The law’s primary author, Republican Texas State Rep. Jared Patterson, said its aim is simple: Get sexually explicit content out of schools.
But the burden of rating these books falls on book vendors. Vendors told CNN this makes complying impossible.
“We’ve never rated books ever,” Rejsek said. “We have no training.”
Patterson said he disagrees: Ultimately, it’s the vendor’s job to rate the books appropriately, he said.
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