FILE - Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker smiles during a bill signing ceremony Monday, March 13, 2023, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File)

During a press conference at Harold Washington Library in Chicago on Monday afternoon, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) signed the nation’s first piece of legislation that outlaws book bans.

According to a press release from Pritzker’s office, House Bill 2789 is ­designed to protect the freedom of libraries to acquire materials without limitations. The bill also requires Illinois to adopt the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights statewide, which protects reading material from being restricted because of “partisan or personal disapproval.” Any library that removes reading materials for partisan or personal reasons would risk losing state grants.

“Book bans are about censorship, marginalizing people, marginalizing ideas and facts. Regimes ban books, not democracies,” Pritzker said. “Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the Taliban’s Afghanistan. We refuse to let a vitriolic strain of white nationalism coursing through our country determine whose histories are told. Not in Illinois.”

There were 69 titles across 43 attempts to ban books in Illinois in 2022 according to the ALA, with hundreds more happening nationwide in mostly Republican controlled states, according to PEN America. Florida, behind the leadership of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), has been one of the prominent examples of conservative book banning.

HB 2789 will go into effect in Illinois on Jan. 1, 2024.