Llano County has been embroiled in a lawsuit over library books for over a year.
Seven patrons of the library filed a lawsuit against Llano County officials after those officials ordered the removal of 17 books from the shelves and the suspension of access to digital library books.
Since then, a judge in Austin ordered that the books be reinstated at the library, and in an unrelated move the library system began to provide digital books again through a new platform.
County officials and those in favor of the book removal argued that the titles were not appropriate for children. Some of the books were for kids, some were not — and most dealt with issues related to race and LGBTQ identity.
Bayliss Wagner, who covers politics for the Austin American-Statesman, said this hearing comes after the county appealed the previous judge’s decision to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
“After the district court judge said you need to restore the books, Llano County appealed to the Fifth Circuit. The Fifth Circuit then said eight of these books you should not have removed, but the rest are fine,” Wagner said. “Then the county appealed; they weren’t happy with that. And they said, we want all 17 judges on the bench, not just three judges, to hear our argument.
“And what they’re arguing is that a precedent that’s been in place for 30 years called Campbell v. St. Tammany Parish School Board is wrong. And this is a very consequential argument they’re making because that precedent says that government officials and librarians cannot ban or remove books ‘simply because they dislike the ideas within them.’”
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If this case results in the overturning of that constitutional precedent, Wagner said it could have wide-reaching impact for the status of book challenges and libraries nationwide.
“[The plaintiffs are] saying that the precedent prohibits Llano from removing any books because of their viewpoint. They’re saying you can’t remove books simply because you don’t like the ideas in them; you can’t remove books because you don’t agree with them,” Wagner said. “And so that’s something that’s been the precedent for a long time.
“And to get out of that, Llano, with a very prominent conservative attorney, Jonathan Mitchell, is arguing the government has no constitutional obligation to provide certain books or even to provide libraries. And so the First Amendment shouldn’t be involved here.”
However, given that the county asked for all 17 judges on the circuit to weigh in, the case will likely take a long time to be resolved.
“This appeal was brought after a temporary injunction from the district court, so we could be looking at three or four more years easily. Once this appeal is decided and maybe in the next year and then the case goes to trial and then more appeals could happen,” Wagner said. “And while that’s happening, Llano County has paused any purchases of new books, saying that they can’t obtain new books while the litigation is ongoing because they don’t want to run into more legal issues. A lot of citizens, you know, aren’t totally buying that argument, but that’s where it is right now.”
The county’s case has had a lot of support from conservative groups including the Heritage Foundation and America First Legal. Wagner said this is in part because it is taking place at a public library, not a school library, which allows the county to make a more complicated legal argument.
“This is a public library case where the books were removed rather than banned. And it’s sort of a way to make an argument that isn’t on its face about bans, which I think have a lot of negative stigma around them,” she said. “They can make a more nuanced argument — or they initially made a more nuanced argument — about inappropriate books.”
This argument centers around the fact that the librarian, facing pressure from county officials, removed the books herself, rather than being formally ordered to do so.
And if the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals allows the removal to stand, it’s possible this case will go to the Supreme Court
“There was a book ban case in Iowa where the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the government speech argument — that’s the argument that Llano County is making here — basically doesn’t apply,” Wagner said. “And so they talked at the hearing about how if the Fifth Circuit rules differently, it will set up a circuit split, which is one of the cases in which the Supreme Court is most likely to intervene to settle it.”
