By Bill Zeeble
KERA
Originally published Oct. 22, 2025
The 2023 Texas law requiring booksellers and publishers to rate their books based on sexual content and references has been declared unconstitutional in a Waco court.
A federal judge on Tuesday declared House Bill 900, also known as the READER Act, violates the constitution. The ruling makes permanent a lower court’s temporary injunction that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals later upheld.
The law firm Haynes Boone, which represented the coalition of plaintiffs that sued to block the law, said in a statement the ruling is a “major First Amendment victory.”