During the 88th legislative session, the legislature passed HB 900, the READER Act (Restricting Explicit and Adult Designated Educational Resources).
The READER Act was led by Representative Jared Patterson (R - 106) and had bi-partisan support. According to a summary of the bill by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, the new law requires all public school districts in Texas to develop procedures and policies for how each school acquires, maintains, reviews, and, if appropriate, removes books or other materials from schools.
During the vote on third reading, Representative Patterson said of the bill: “this bill is about radically sexual content in the hands of unaccompanied children in public school libraries.”
According to the Texas Legislature Online, the bill passed the House on a 95-52-1 vote.
Now, some of the provisions in the READER Act have been halted by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Fifth Circuit upheld a preliminary injunction that prevents enforcement of the law that requires book distributors to schools in Texas to rate library books as containing sexually explicit material. The book distributors claimed that the law would cause a financial hardship and that the ratings requirement violated the First Amendment’s prohibition on compelled speech.
Representative Patterson disagrees. In a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on May 10th, he said “as you are aware, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld the ridiculous decision that the State of Texas cannot require government book vendors to ensure they are not sending graphically sexual materials to minors in public schools.”
“As the author of HB900, known as the READER Act, I ask you to appeal their decision to the Supreme Court of the United States as soon as possible,” asked Patterson.
As of Wednesday, Paxton had not indicated whether he would appeal the ruling.
The other provisions of the bill for school districts to create policies and procedures related to the books they use remain intact.
