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Friday, August 15, 2025

Half Worth Books opposes invoice meant to punish bookstores for obscene content material

The proposed invoice would maintain bookstores legally accountable for the “distribution, transmission, or show of dangerous materials to a minor.”

DALLAS — Dallas-based Half Worth Books is rallying in opposition to a Texas invoice that, if handed, might end in bookstores going through authorized prices if they’ve content material deemed obscene in a means {that a} minor might entry. 

Particularly, the invoice, HB 1375, authored by state Rep. Nate Schatzline, R-Fort Price, would maintain bookstores legally accountable for the “distribution, transmission, or show of dangerous materials to a minor.” Below the proposed invoice, bookstores might be held accountable for every occasion of publicity to content material deemed obscene by way of lawsuits that might end in obligatory damages, courtroom prices and legal professional’s charges. The invoice does have exceptions for content material from information shops. 

The invoice’s detractors, together with Half Worth Books President Kathy Doyle Thomas, name the invoice a “menace to all booksellers.”

“The rise of ebook challenges and ebook bans has turn into a important assault on our freedoms. HB 1375 is a menace to all booksellers,” Doyle Thomas stated in a letter despatched to a Texas Home committee in regards to the invoice that was shared on social media. “It’s going to drive enterprise out of native retail and into on-line marketplaces, which limits the general public’s entry and doesn’t instantly profit our state financial system. I earnestly ask that you simply not intrude with our capability to do enterprise, nor our clients’ capability to buy books which are turning into more durable to seek out in our libraries and faculties.”

Doyle Thomas referred to as on lawmakers to not vote the invoice out of committee. It nonetheless needs to be thought of by the total Texas Home earlier than probably going to the Senate. 

“Exposing native bookstores to frivolous lawsuits solely serves to gasoline the continual threats in opposition to freedom of expression that now we have seen throughout the nation lately,” she wrote. “Please don’t vote HB 1375 out of committee.”

Schatzline, in a committee listening to on the invoice as reported by our content material companions on the Fort Price Star-Telegram, stated the invoice will assist defend kids. 

“As lawmakers, now we have an obligation to safeguard households and kids from exploitation and from the unchecked unfold of dangerous materials in our communities and offline,” Schatzline stated, as reported by the Star-Telegram. 

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