“This is textbook compelled speech,” U.S. District Judge Alan Albright ruled in halting enforcement of the law. Texas is appealing.

OP NOTE: This is actually a week old, today 3 judge panel allowed the ban to go into effect. Here’s the author’s mastodon post about it. though there are few other details

BREAKING: A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit (Elrod, Haynes, Douglas) allows Texas’s book-ban law to go into effect, issuing an administrative stay of the district court ruling enjoining enforcement of the law.
The court gave no reasoning for its order, which is remarkable given that the law has never been allowed to go into effect, so the order — although posed as merely “administrative” — is a ruling, at least temporarily, changing the status of state law.

… rest of blurb …

On Monday, a federal judge ruled in favor of booksellers who argued that Texas’s new law banning some books from public school libraries and restricting others through an onerous and complicated regime is likely unconstitutional in an opinion that blasted the law and the arguments the state made in its defense.

“[T]his Court has found that READER likely violates the First Amendment by containing an unconstitutional prior restraint, compelled speech, and unconstitutional vagueness,” U.S. District Judge Alan Albright — a Trump appointee to the federal bench — concluded in issuing a preliminary injunction halting state officials from enforcing the law. Texas already announced that it is appealing the decision.

“To put the scale of the number of books that would need to be rated in perspective, a librarian in San Antonio for Northside ISD testified that six school districts alone had library collections totaling over six million items,“ Albright wrote. There are more than 1,200 school districts in Texas.

Let’s just get this out of the way: Albright cannot believe this law exists. He also cannot believe the arguments the state made in its defense.

  • OldWoodFrame
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    9 months ago

    Just because he’s a Trump appointed judge doesn’t mean he exclusively makes bad decisions. I agree on this one.

    • catreadingabook@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      Judge Albright is kind of a (controversial) celebrity among intellectual property lawyers. Until the district started randomizing case assignments, everyone used to try to file in Albright’s court because he’s so plaintiff-friendly. The plaintiffs here got lucky with this judge assignment, too bad the Circuit Court is not amused lol.

    • tekktrix@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      I want to celebrate but isn’t part of the plan / what the conservatives want though? So they can appeal it to the Supreme Court and get permission to pass these laws nationwide?