Alabama lawmakers on Thursday advanced legislation that could see librarians prosecuted under the state’s obscenity law for providing “harmful” materials to minors, the latest in a wave of bills in Republican-led states targeting library content and decisions.

The Alabama House of Representatives voted 72-28 for the bill that now moves to the Alabama Senate. The legislation comes amid a soaring number of book challenges — often centered on LGBTQ content — and efforts in a number of states to ban drag queen story readings.

ALABAMA LAWMAKERS ADVANCE BILLS ENSURING BIDEN APPEARS ON NOVEMBER BALLOT

“This is an effort to protect children. It is not a Democrat bill. It’s not a Republican bill. It’s a people bill to try to protect children,” Republican Rep. Arnold Mooney, the bill’s sponsor, said during debate.

The Alabama bill removes the existing exemption for public libraries in the state’s obscenity law. It also expands the definition of prohibited sexual conduct to include any “sexual or gender oriented conduct” at K-12 public schools or public libraries that “exposes minors to persons who are dressed in sexually revealing, exaggerated, or provocative clothing or costumes, or are stripping, or engaged in lewd or lascivious dancing, presentations, or activities.”

Under the process laid out in the bill, a librarian in a public library or public K-12 school could face a misdemeanor charge if the librarian fails to remove material or cease conduct that violates the state’s obscenity law within seven days of receiving a written complaint from the public.

Opponents argued that proposal would threaten librarians with criminal prosecution at the whims of community members who disagreed with their decisions on books and programs.

“This process will be manipulated and used to arrest librarians that you don’t like, and not because they did anything criminal. It’s because you disagree with them,” Rep. Chris England, a Democrat from Tuscaloosa, said during debate.

Craig Scott, president of the Alabama Library Association, said libraries already have longstanding procedures for reviewing the suitability of content and for the public to submit challenges if they disagree with a decision.

“Why are they coming into libraries or thinking that they can come in and run the place better than us as professionals?” Scott said in a phone interview. He predicted the state will lose “lawsuit after lawsuit” if the bill becomes law.

A judge in July temporarily blocked Arkansas from enforcing a similar law that would have allowed criminal charges against librarians and booksellers for providing “harmful” materials to minors.

Scott, who began his career in 1977, said he has never seen anything like the current climate. He said the Gadsden Public Library where he works has seen one person — who eventually obtained a role in library governance — challenge 30 books. Most of the book challenges are related to books with content about gender identity. But they also have included a book about a boy who wants to become a ballet dancer, he said.

“We are for the entire community. We have to be. We’ve got some books in here that are far right. We’ve got some books on the far left. But the library is for the entire community. We’ve got to stay in the middle as best we can, and they want to push us way off to the far right,” Scott said.

Republican Rep. David Faulkner, who worked on a substitute version of the bill that was approved by the House, disputed that the bill could have wide-ranging impact. He said courts have long interpreted what is obscene material.

The law takes away immunity that K-12 and public libraries had under the obscenity law, but it puts limits on when prosecutions could occur, Faulkner said.

“It’s only going to be a misdemeanor, and it’s only if, after knowing about the material, they didn’t do anything about it,” he said.

Rep. Neil Rafferty, a Democrat from Birmingham, said he was concerned that the bill’s language would allow someone to “target and harass people who might be dressed up in a Halloween costume” or wearing summer clothing that someone considered too revealing.

“I feel like this is a violation of the First Amendment, and it’s easily going to be abused,” he said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that California continued to rapidly add the battery storage that is crucial to the transition to cleaner energy, but admitted it was still not enough to avoid blackouts during heat waves.

Standing in the middle of a solar farm in Yolo County, Newsom announced the state now had battery storage systems with the capacity of more than 10,000 megawatts — about 20% of the 52,000 megawatts the state says is needed to meet its climate goals.

“This is critical to how we achieve 100% clean energy by 2045,” Newsom said. “Batteries allow us to use clean energy captured by solar and other renewable sources at all times of the day, especially when solar generation drops after the sun goes down.”

The ultimate goal, he said, is to slow climate change.

“As the hots get hotter, the drys get drier, the wets get wetter, simultaneous droughts, and rain bombs, we have to address these issues with a ferocity that is required of us and we’re doing just that in California,” he said.

Asked by reporters if California now had enough battery storage so that residents no longer had to worry about blackouts during times of high power use, Newsom laughed.

“We have a lot of work to do still in moving this transition, with the kind of stability that’s required,” the governor said. “So no, this is not today announcing that blackouts are part of our past.”

Battery storage installations work by receiving excess solar and wind power and releasing it later, especially from 4 to 9 p.m. when the state’s grid is most under stress.

Last year, Newsom appointees voted to extend the operation of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant another five years to bolster the reliability of Calfornia’s grid and avoid rolling blackouts. The aging nuclear facility and its twin reactors had been scheduled to shut down.

In August 2020, a major heat event fueled by the climate crisis forced some of the state’s first rotating power outages in decades, as the ongoing transition to green energy lagged behind demand. Californians narrowly avoided rolling blackouts in 2022 as a record-breaking heat wave broiled almost every corner of the state for days.

When the stepmother of Democratic Minnesota state Sen. Nicole Mitchell reported a home break-in around 4:45 a.m. Monday, she said she was armed with “a little steak knife” after finding an intruder next to her bed, according to a 911 call transcript obtained by Fox News Digital Thursday.

Mitchell’s stepmother told a dispatcher the intruder ran downstairs to the basement of her home in the 700 block of Granger Road in Detroit Lakes, and she didn’t know if the person was “breaking out the back window.”

Mitchell was found and arrested at the home after police arrived and allegedly found her wearing all black with a flashlight covered with a black sock nearby. She was charged with first-degree burglary.

When the dispatcher asked if the caller got a good look at the intruder, she responded: “No, it was completely dark. I tripped over ’em. Ah, he was on the floor next to my bed. He ran downstairs into my basement.”

DEMOCRATIC MINNESOTA STATE SENATOR CLAIMS SHE WAS CHECKING IN ON ILL LOVED ONE DURING ALLEGED BURGLARY

The caller also told the dispatcher she had grabbed “a little steak knife.” Throughout the call, she only referred to the intruder as “he” and never suggested she knew who had entered her home. 

Mitchell denied the burglary allegation in a Facebook post Tuesday, claiming she went to check on “a loved one” with Alzheimer’s after learning of medical information which caused her “grave concern.”

READ THE 911 CALL TRANSCRIPT: MOBILE USERS, CLICK HERE

According to the 911 call transcript, the dispatcher asked the caller if she could hear anyone breaking out the window in the basement.

“I’m not hearing anything right now,” she responded. “Maybe the window is already open down there. There’s a basement — a drop window that can crank open. I don’t know.”

According to a criminal complaint, responding officers found that a black backpack belonging to Mitchell was propping open a basement window. Inside the backpack, officers found a laptop belonging to the stepmother, who told officers that she never gave it to Mitchell.

Mitchell was elected to represent Minnesota’s Senate District 47 in 2022. (Minnesota State Senate)

Mitchell acknowledged she entered through a window and told investigators she was trying to get her late father’s ashes, photos, a flannel shirt and other items of sentimental value, the criminal complaint said. Mitchell claimed her stepmother had stopped speaking to her after her father’s death and refused to give her the items.

DEMOCRATIC MINNESOTA STATE SENATOR CHARGED WITH FIRST-DEGREE BURGLARY AFTER BREAKING INTO STEPMOTHER’S HOUSE

“I know I did something bad,” Mitchell is quoted as saying in the complaint.

Mitchell is accused of breaking into her stepmother’s home and stealing a laptop. (AP Photo/Steve Karnowski)

In Mitchell’s Facebook post, the state senator said she entered the home but did not explain why she apparently entered through a window in the dark early morning hours.

“Unfortunately, I startled this close relative, exacerbating paranoia, and I was accused of stealing, which I absolutely deny,” Mitchell wrote.

CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Mitchell, of Woodbury, has represented District 47 since she was elected to the state Senate in 2022. She was previously a meteorologist for KSTP-TV and Minnesota Public Radio and serves as a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard.