Court Rejects Texas Book Rating Law

“HB 900, Texas’s book rating law, is unconstitutional.”

On Wednesday, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court decision to block key provisions of HB 900, Texas’s controversial book rating law. In a 36-page decision, a three-judge panel ruled that the law likely violated First Amendment protections against compelled speech.

The lawsuit challenging HB 900 was first filed in July, by a coalition including two Texas bookstores, Austin’s BookPeople and Houston’s Blue Willow Bookshop, together with the American Booksellers Association, the Association of American Publishers, the Authors Guild, and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

In a joint statement, the plaintiffs called the appeals court decision historic. Texas Rep. Jared Patterson, the law’s author, urged the state to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.

“For now, the law is blocked while the litigation continues, but with this ruling the outcome is all but certain—HB 900, Texas’s book rating law, is unconstitutional,” explains Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly executive editor.

“The court had no trouble rejecting the state’s argument that the mandatory book ratings would be informational and uncontroversial, like nutrition labels, movie ratings, or warning labels on cigarettes,” he tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally.

“In fact, the ratings would be ‘highly discretionary’ and would involve weighing and balancing many factors to determine a rating for each book.”

Every Friday, CCC’s “Velocity of Content” features the editors and reporters of Publishers Weekly for an early look at what news publishers, editors, authors, agents, and librarians will be talking about when they return to work on Monday.