How Much are Book Bans Costing Texas Tax Payers?

{Guest post by Leila Green Little} According to documents obtained from a public records request, the State of Texas has spent $179,897.54 on its defense so far in BookPeople, Inc., et al., v. Martha Wong, et al. This price tag results from over 1,600 hours of labor for the Office of the Attorney General’s office.

And this is just the beginning—this cost will surely increase as the case goes to trial. Should the trend continue and the State of Texas eventually lose in the terminal stage of this lawsuit (as they most likely will), it will be responsible for paying the plaintiffs’ legal fees. 

Several states have passed anti-book ban legislation, and more are following suit. They’re moving in a positive direction, and taking action against this nationwide attack on our libraries.     

Texas isn’t one of them. 

Help fight against book bans in Texas by signing the petition today!

Instead, the Lone Star State is doubling down on book banning.  Our state passed HB 900 in 2023, and now many anti-librarian bills have already been filed early in this legislative session. 

Despite our state’s legislators being informed that this bill was unconstitutional during public testimony and in op-eds, they plowed ahead and the bill was passed into law.  

Ironically, entitled the READER Act, HB 900 would have required book vendors to assign a rating regarding sexual relevance to tens of thousands of books. It would certainly have resulted in books being banned from Texas public school libraries. Shortly after HB 900 was passed, a coalition of booksellers and organizations filed a lawsuit against Texas officials and a motion for preliminary injunction. The portions of the law challenged in court were found to be both vague and overbroad by a federal district court and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the preliminary injunction remains in place.  The lawsuit will go to trial later this year. 

There are many good reasons why states should avoid passing laws banning books, not the least of which is that they’re unconstitutional and bad for students. (They’re also most definitely not a hoax.)

Support efforts to defend the freedom to read & oppose book bans in Texas.

But in a world where money talks, I hope politicians and taxpayers will take note: litigation is expensive. 

How much more will Texans pay to defend Representative Jared Patterson’s desire to separate students from their library books? 

I hope this year’s crop of legislators pays attention to these unnecessary and wasteful costs.  Unconstitutional laws and local municipal actions to ban books have lost in court time and time again.  As we move into this lawmaking season, I hope fiscal responsibility can be one more reason to avoid anti-librarian legislation.  Texans, I hope you will let your legislators know you don’t want your hard-earned money to go towards court costs, and you don’t want students separated from their books.  I know I will. 

Documents obtained by Leila Green Little in response to a Public Information Request

About Leila Green Little

Leila Green Little is a rural mom and intellectual freedom advocate.  She has been fighting against censorship in her local public library system since 2021.  In 2022, she and six others became plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit Leila Green Little, et. al, v. Llano County, et. al, which resulted in a federal court issuing a preliminary injunction requiring Llano County to return the censored books to the catalog and shelves of the public library.  The case is ongoing and she awaits a ruling from the en banc panel in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, where the case was last heard in September 2024.  Leila was galvanized to learn more about librarianship, andearned her Master of Library Science degree from the University of North Texas in spring 2024.  She and her 6 co-plaintiffs were the recipients of the 2023 Sam G. Whitten Award for Intellectual Freedom, given by the Texas Library Association.  Previously, Ms. Little earned her master’s degree from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and had a previous career as a speech-language pathologist specializing in working with patients with head and neck cancer.  She likes to read banned books, and lives on a cattle ranch with her husband of 19 years and their two kids.