Julia Letlow's Parents' Bill of Rights clears the US House

WASHINGTON – Amid a national culture war in education, House Republicans on Friday narrowly passed legislation by a Louisiana congresswoman that would give parents more oversight of what is taught in public schools. 

The Parents Bill of Rights, or H.R. 5, by U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, R-Start, passed 213-208. Every Democratic representative and five Republicans voted against the legislation.

H.R. 5 now goes to the Democratic-majority U.S. Senate where it will get an aloof reception at best.

But Letlow said her bill is a simply an affirmation that parents have the right to know and be heard on how their children are being taught.

“This bill is the vehicle by which we can put parents and educators together at the same table to have a productive dialog,” she said Thursday. “This bill is not complex or complicated, nor should it be partisan or polarizing.”

H.R. 5 would need 60 votes to pass in a Senate with 51 Democrats and 49 Republicans. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, has said the bill faces a “dead end” in the upper chamber, according to the Associated Press.

U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, is the lead minority member on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, where the Letlow legislation will be assigned. He said he's not even sure it will get a hearing.

“My chairman is Bernie Sanders, and we'll see if Sen. Sanders is open to it,” Cassidy said of the Vermont independent. “He decides what bills come to the floor. But I will certainly push that this be one of the bills.”

Calls to the HELP majority staff were not immediately returned on Friday.

The Parents’ Bill of Rights was a key plank in the GOP's “Commitment to America” platform, which Republican candidates touted when they ran for House seats last fall. Friday’s vote and the Senate’s action, or lack thereof, will likely be used in 2024 campaigns.

The bill would require schools to give parents lists of specific books available to students in school classrooms and libraries. Parents would also get to review course materials for students and teacher training methods. The bill also provides new avenues for parents to complain about curricula and to opt their children out of certain classes if they disagree with what is being taught. 

The measure comes as tensions have erupted in some states between parents and local school boards over school policies to stop the spread of coronavirus and bathroom access for LGBTQ+ students. Curricula has been another flashpoint, as some parents have decried textbooks that have focused on American slavery, the Jim Crow era and the Civil Rights movement. 

Complaints to local school board officials, most of whom are elected, sometimes turned into violence. 

Republicans have held up those scenes as proof that parents are tired of being ignored by local school officials over teaching about race, gender identification, and sexual orientation.

“Why do we need a law to do what everybody should think is the right thing to do?” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, said Friday prior to the vote. “What alarmed parents were all the other things that had absolutely nothing to do with their kids having an opportunity to achieve the American dream, and, in fact. some of the things going on undermined the basic values that those parents are teaching those kids at home.”

“Community fixtures like our schools play a vital role in every child’s upbringing, but parents’ role can’t be diminished or replaced by an institutionalized approach to education," said Republican Rep. Garret Graves, of Baton Rouge. "This bill will ensure parents have a clear voice in their child’s education."

After debate over the bill's amendments wrapped up late Thursday, U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson, R-Shreveport, said this on Twitter: "The radical left has infiltrated nearly every institution in the U.S. Our education system is one of the most glaring examples." 

While not mentioning the bill specifically, U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Lafayette, said, also on Twitter, that Republicans are attempting to "change the whole public library paradigm."

"The libraries regular Americans recall are gone. They’ve become liberal grooming centers," he wrote. 

The bill will face stiff opposition from Democrats who point out that similar laws in Republican-controlled states have been used to shed library shelves of books only some parents find objectionable. 

“This legislation has nothing to do with parental involvement,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, said on the House floor Thursday. Instead, it “has everything to do with jamming extreme” Republican ideology down children’s throats, he said. 

Louisiana’s lone Democrat in Congress, U.S. Rep. Troy Carter of New Orleans, echoed those sentiments in a statement. 

“I will always support our teachers and vote in the best interest of our children, but that’s not what H.R. 5 is about,” Carter said. “The reality is that this bill is an attempt to give politicians control over students and teachers to protect the feelings of those who don’t like uncomfortable truths. America is a country of freedom of speech and freedom of ideas. Efforts to ban books and censor curriculums are incompatible with our nation’s values.”

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, of Pensacola, Fla. who was one of the Republicans voting against the measure, said he was concerned about the federal government taking on too large a role in education. Members of the House Freedom Caucus attempted but failed to amend H.R. 5 with provisions that would have abolished the U.S. Department of Education and allowed the use of public funds to pay tuition to private schools.

A similar parent's rights law was passed in Louisiana in 2014, amid parental anger over the Common Core State Standards Initiative.