North Carolina Republican lawmakers have introduced a bill that would ban LGBTQ-themed books from elementary school libraries statewide and impose financial penalties, including withholding pay tied to superintendent salaries, on districts that violate the state's "Parents' Bill of Rights" law.
The legislation, House Bill 1043, was filed on Apr. 24, 2026, by House Majority Leader Rep. Brenden Jones (R-Columbus) immediately following a nearly three-hour oversight hearing in which Republican lawmakers grilled Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools (CHCCS) Superintendent Rodney Trice over the district's library book policies.
This was the second such hearing in five months, following a similar session in December 2025 where Jones tossed a book titled "Santa's Husband" over his shoulder, calling it "trash," according to NC Newsline.
The CHCCS Act
Jones named the legislation the "CHCCS Act", standing for "Curriculum, Honesty, Compliance, and Child Safety Act", a direct reference to the school district at the center of the controversy.
The bill seeks to expand the 2023 "Parents' Bill of Rights," known as Senate Bill 49, which already prohibits instruction on gender identity, sexual orientation, and sexual activity in kindergarten through fourth grade.
The new proposal would explicitly classify elementary school library materials as curriculum, meaning books with LGBTQ themes would fall under the same restrictions.
Under the bill's enforcement provisions, parents would be allowed to sue school districts for civil damages of up to $5,000 per violation. The state auditor's office could launch independent investigations and give districts a 45-day window to fix violations. If a district fails to comply, the state could withhold funding tied to central office administration and superintendent salaries.
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"This bill strengthens accountability by tying compliance to central staff salaries," Jones said. "If a superintendent chooses to disregard these requirements, they do so with full awareness of the consequences."
The bill has already drawn support from House Speaker Destin Hall. The NC Values Coalition, a Christian advocacy group, also publicly backed the measure. "It is high time that these sanctimonious school administrators and school boards be held to account," said Tami Fitzgerald, the group's executive director.
CHCCS officials pushed back, maintaining that all books in their school libraries comply with existing state law. Trice argued that a book being on a library shelf is not the same as it being used for classroom instruction, which is what the 2023 law regulates.
Just as our district does not provide instruction on gender identity, sexual activity, or sexuality to K-4 students, we also do not provide instruction on how to play video games, the biographies of professional athletes, or stories about ghosts, subjects of numerous popular titles in our school libraries," Trice wrote in his testimony.
He also noted that despite serving around 11,000 students, the district had received only one formal parental complaint about a library book in recent years, WRAL reported.
Democratic lawmakers called the hearing a distraction. House Minority Leader Rep. Robert Reives (D-Chatham) said in a statement: "It's clear to me that Republicans think if they jangle enough culture war trinkets in front of our faces, that we will forget about the fact they haven't done the simple tasks they were elected to do."
Rep. Eric Ager (D-Buncombe) said some of the flagged books contain nothing more than a character with two mothers, and argued that referencing same-sex families is no different from referencing opposite-sex families.
The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina warned that book bans have faced legal challenges in other states, noting that under the First Amendment, public officials cannot bar access to ideas simply for political or partisan reasons. Jones said he aims for the bill to be enacted before Jul. 1, as per Chapelboro.
