Amicus Curiae Brief — Computer & Communications Industry Association, Applicant v. Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas

Nos. 25A1389, 25A1390

In the

Supreme Court of the United States

_____________________________________

STUDENTS ENGAGED IN ADVANCING TEXAS, ET AL.,

Applicants,

v.

KEN PAXTON, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS ATTORNEY GENERAL OF TEXAS,

Respondent.

_____________________________________

COMPUTER & COMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION,

Applicant,

v.

KEN PAXTON, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS ATTORNEY GENERAL OF TEXAS,

Respondent.

_____________________________________

On Applications to Vacate the Stay Pending Appeal from the United States Court

of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

_____________________________________

BRIEF OF PATRIOT VOICES AS AMICUS CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF THE

APPLICATIONS TO VACATE STAY PENDING APPEAL

_____________________________________

MICHAEL H. MCGINLEY

BRIAN A. KULP

DECHERT LLP

Cira Centre

2929 Arch Street

Philadelphia, PA 19104

GARY M. DREYER

DECHERT LLP

Three Bryant Park

1095 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10036

STEVEN A. ENGEL

Counsel of Record

RILEY D. COMPTON

DECHERT LLP

1900 K Street, NW

Washington, DC 20006

(202) 261-3369

steven.engel@dechert.com

Counsel for Amicus Curiae Patriot Voices, Inc.

June 19, 2026

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE ............................................................................... 1

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT ................................................ 2

ARGUMENT .................................................................................................................. 4

I.

II.

III.

The Right of Parents to Direct Their Children’s Upbringing Is Deeply

Rooted in Western Society................................................................................... 4

A.

For Millennia, Parents Have Had an Inalienable Right to Direct

Their Children’s Upbringing. ................................................................... 4

B.

This Court’s Precedents Have Recognized this Fundamental

Right. ........................................................................................................ 6

C.

SB 2420 Burdens the Rights of Parents to Direct Their Children’s

Upbringing. ............................................................................................. 10

The Fifth Circuit’s Stay Order Should Be Vacated Because SB 2420

Impermissibly Burdens Speech. ....................................................................... 12

A.

Strict Scrutiny Applies. .......................................................................... 13

B.

Regardless, SB 2420 Fails Any Form of Heightened Constitutional

Scrutiny. .................................................................................................. 14

SB 2420 Treats Mundane Online Activity as If It Were Obscenity and

Worse than Equivalent Offline Activity. .......................................................... 15

CONCLUSION............................................................................................................. 17

i

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Page(s)

Cases

Brown v. Ent. Merchants Ass’n,

564 U.S. 786 (2011) ...................................................................... 3, 6, 11, 12, 14, 15

Free Speech Coal., Inc. v. Paxton,

606 U.S. 461 (2025) .................................................................................... 13, 15, 16

In re D.T.,

625 S.W.3d 62 (Tex. 2021)........................................................................................ 9

In re K.A.W.,

133 S.W.3d 1 (Mo. 2004)........................................................................................... 9

Mahmoud v. Taylor,

606 U.S. 522 (2025) .............................................................................................. 7, 9

Marcus Steven H. v. State Dep’t of Family Servs. (In re T.M.R.),

487 P.3d 783 (Nev. 2021) ......................................................................................... 9

Martinez-Cedillo v. Sessions,

896 F.3d 979 (9th Cir. 2018) .................................................................................... 9

May v. Anderson,

345 U.S. 528 (1953) .................................................................................................. 9

Meyer v. Nebraska,

262 U.S. 390 (1923) .............................................................................................. 6, 7

Mirabelli v. Bonta,

607 U.S. 492 (2026) ........................................................................................ 4, 8, 10

Moore v. City of East Cleveland,

431 U.S. 494 (1977) .................................................................................................. 9

Parham v. J.R.,

442 U.S. 584 (1979) ............................................................................................ 7, 10

Pierce v. Soc’y of Sisters,

268 U.S. 510 (1925) .......................................................................................... 2, 7, 8

Prince v. Massachusetts,

321 U.S. 158 (1944) .................................................................................................. 9

ii

Quilloin v. Walcott,

434 U.S. 246 (1978) .......................................................................................... 2, 3, 9

Reed v. Town of Gilbert,

576 U.S. 155 (2015) .......................................................................................... 13, 14

Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson,

316 U.S. 535 (1942) .................................................................................................. 2

Stanley v. Illinois,

405 U.S. 645 (1972) .................................................................................................. 9

Troxel v. Granville,

530 U.S. 57 (2000) ................................................................................................ 4, 7

Turner Broadcasting Sys., Inc. v. FCC,

520 U.S. 180 (1997) ................................................................................................ 13

Washington v. Glucksberg,

521 U.S. 702 (1997) ................................................................................................ 11

Wisconsin v. Yoder,

406 U.S. 205 (1972) ...................................................................................... 2, 3, 4, 8

Constitutional Provisions

Tex. Const. art. I, § 37 ................................................................................................... 8

Statutes

Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 121.022(e) ................................................................. 2, 10, 13

Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 121.022(h) ........................................................................... 14

Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 121.026(a)(3)......................................................................... 2

Tex. Penal Code § 43.24(b) .......................................................................................... 16

Other Authorities

1 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Callaghan &

Cockcroft ed., 1871) .............................................................................................. 5, 6

Catechism of the Catholic Church ¶ 2221 .................................................................... 5

Deuteronomy 11:19 (King James Version, 1769) ......................................................... 5

Ephesians 6:4 (King James Version, 1769) .................................................................. 5

iii

John Locke, Second Treatise of Government (C.B. Macpherson ed., Hackett

Publ’g Co. 1980) (1690)............................................................................................. 5

A. MacLeod, A Moral Tale (1975).................................................................................. 6

S. Mintz & S. Kellogg, Domestic Revolutions (1988) .................................................... 6

Proverbs 22:6 (King James Version, 1769) ................................................................... 5

Psalms 78:1-6 (King James Version, 1769) .................................................................. 5

iv

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE1

Patriot Voices, Inc. (“Patriot Voices”) is a non-profit organization with over

100,000 grassroots members from every walk of life. The organization is dedicated

to providing a voice for working families across America, seeking to advocate for a

government that is smaller, less intrusive, and that gives the American worker a

fighting chance.

To that end, Patriot Voices provides families with educational

resources, advocates to federal, state, and local governments, and engages with the

media, all in service of the rights and interests of its membership. Amicus curiae

briefs, like this one, are part of Patriot Voices’ advocacy efforts.

The issue of parental rights is of core concern to working families across our

Nation.

Now more than ever, parents and their children must confront new

challenges

and

new

opportunities

arising

from

rapid

innovation

in

telecommunications and information technology. In assessing how their children are

to be empowered, rather than ensnared, by these emerging technologies, parents

must exercise their judgment in determining the best interests of their children.

Parents are justifiably concerned when governmental entities, of any stripe, seek to

step in and to substitute the judgment of politicians for those of parents when it comes

to raising their children. Patriot Voices therefore files this brief to explain how SB

2420 not only infringes upon the First Amendment, but undermines the fundamental

rights of parents across the State of Texas to direct the upbringing of their children.

1 No counsel for any party authored this brief in whole or in part, and no entity or

person, aside from amicus curiae, its members, or its counsel, made any monetary

contribution intended to fund the preparation or submission of this brief.

1

The State’s effort to substitute its top-down judgment for the individual

determinations of millions of parents across Texas unconstitutionally burdens both

the fundamental rights of parents and the freedom of speech.

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

The right to have and to raise one’s children is “one of the basic civil rights of

man.” Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U.S. 535, 541 (1942). That right

is deeply embedded in “[t]he history and culture of Western civilization,” and it is

“established beyond debate as an enduring American tradition.” Wisconsin v. Yoder,

406 U.S. 205, 232 (1972). This Court thus has held “on numerous occasions that the

relationship between parent and child is constitutionally protected.” Quilloin v.

Walcott, 434 U.S. 246, 255 (1978).

That “fundamental theory of liberty” recognizes that “[t]he child is not the mere

creature of the state.” Pierce v. Soc’y of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 535 (1925). And so no

State may “unreasonably interfere[] with the liberty of parents and guardians to

direct the upbringing and education of [their] children.” Id. at 534. Instead, “those

who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to

recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.” Id. at 535.

The Texas law here cannot be squared with these principles. While purporting

to “restore[] parental empowerment,” App.162a, SB 2420 requires parents to

manually approve each and every download of, and download within, almost any

application from an app store.

See Tex. Bus. & Com. Code §§ 121.022(e),

121.026(a)(3). Parents can and do differ about the responsibilities with which they

2

entrust each of their children as they grow from early years through adulthood. But

no matter what each parent believes about the degree of autonomy that is best for

each child, the State of Texas requires that the parents constantly look over their

children’s shoulders. Parents who prefer to use the app stores’ existing granular

controls must follow the State’s blunt regime, and so must parents who prefer to give

their children broad discretion. That subverts the “primary role of the parents in the

upbringing of their children.” Yoder, 406 U.S. at 232. And it unconstitutionally

intrudes into “the relationship between parent and child.” Quilloin, 434 U.S. at 255.

The Texas legislature may have been well-intentioned in seeking to encourage

parents to play a role in their children’s use of smartphone apps, but this overbroad

law goes well beyond good intentions. Rather than vindicate parental authority, SB

2420 hampers it. Texas’s effort to control the parent-child relationship thus cannot

justify its content-based regulation of protected speech. By placing burdens on some

categories of child development applications but not others, Texas substitutes its

judgment for that of parents and regulates speech in accordance with “what the state

thinks parents ought to want.” Brown v. Ent. Merchants Ass’n, 564 U.S. 786, 804

(2011). This sort of substitution of the State’s judgment for that of parents is not “a

proper governmental means of aiding parental authority” at all. Id. at 802 (emphasis

added). And it provides no basis for satisfying any form of heightened scrutiny.

The District Court’s preliminary injunction was entirely correct, and at a

minimum, the status quo should be preserved. Accordingly, this Court should vacate

the Fifth Circuit’s stay pending appeal.

3

ARGUMENT

I.

The Right of Parents to Direct Their Children’s Upbringing Is Deeply

Rooted in Western Society.

The Fifth Circuit’s decision misread the First Amendment and should be

vacated for that reason. But the First Amendment issues are made all the more plain

by the degree to which SB 2420 infringes upon the rights of parents. A parent’s right

to direct the upbringing of his or her children stretches back thousands of years and

has become deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition. And this right

necessarily gives parents the prerogative to make individualized assessments about

the moral and practical needs of their children. But SB 2420 replaces the judgment

of individual parents with the top-down, overbearing judgment of state politicians. It

thus defies this Court’s “long-established precedent,” which has consistently upheld

“parents’ rights to direct the upbringing and education of their children.” Mirabelli

v. Bonta, 607 U.S. 492, 497 (2026) (per curiam).

A.

For Millennia, Parents Have Had an Inalienable Right to Direct

Their Children’s Upbringing.

The right of parents “in the care, custody, and control of their children” is

“perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this Court.”

Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 65 (2000) (plurality op.). And that is no surprise.

“The history and culture of Western civilization reflect a strong tradition of parental

concern for the nurture and upbringing of their children.” Yoder, 406 U.S. at 233.

Indeed, that tradition was embedded in the Bible itself. Deuteronomy 11:19

directs parents to teach God’s commandments to their children, “speaking of them

when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest

4

down, and when thou risest up.” Deuteronomy 11:19 (King James Version, 1769).2

John Locke too rooted those biblical teachings in his political philosophy, writing that

parents’ rights and “obligation[s] to preserve, nourish, and educate the children they

had begotten” began with “Adam and Eve, and after them all parents.” John Locke,

Second Treatise of Government § 56 (C.B. Macpherson ed., Hackett Publ’g Co. 1980)

(1690). As Locke further explained:

The power . . . that parents have over their children, arises from that

duty which is incumbent on them, to take care of their off-spring, during

the imperfect state of childhood. To inform the mind, and govern the

actions of their yet ignorant nonage, till reason shall take its place, and

ease them of that trouble, is what the children want, and the parents

are bound to: for God having given man an understanding to direct his

actions, has allowed him a freedom of will, and liberty of acting, as

properly belonging thereunto, within the bounds of that law he is under.

Id. at § 58.

That Enlightenment understanding was equally well rooted in the English

common law. Blackstone regarded the relationship between parent and child as “the

most universal relation in nature.” 1 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws

of England 446 (Callaghan & Cockcroft ed., 1871). And he recognized that “[t]he

power of parents over their children is derived from” their “duty” to provide

2 The foundational nature of the parent-child relationship is endemic in both Judaism

and Christianity. Deuteronomy 11:19 is part of the second paragraph of the Shema,

which is widely regarded as the most sacred prayer in Judaism. Other verses in the

Old and New Testament that describe parental obligations to direct their children’s

moral upbringing include Psalms 78:1-6, Proverbs 22:6, and Ephesians 6:4. As

another example, the Catholic Church teaches that parents must provide for the

“moral education” and “spiritual formation” of their children. Catechism of the

Catholic Church ¶ 2221. And the Church emphasizes that “[t]he role of parents in

education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate

substitute.” Id. (emphasis omitted). “The right and the duty of parents to educate

their children are primordial and inalienable.” Id.

5

maintenance, protection, and education for their children. Id. at 446, 451. This

“authority,” Blackstone noted, “is given them partly to enable the parent more

effectually to perform his duty, and partly as a recompense for his care and trouble in

the faithful discharge of it.” Id. at 451.

The Framers shared that understanding too. “The historical evidence shows

that the founding generation believed parents had absolute authority over their

minor children and expected parents to use that authority to direct the proper

development of their children.” Brown, 564 U.S. at 822 (Thomas, J., dissenting). In

other words, parents “ha[d] both the right and duty” to “govern their children’s

growth.” Id. at 824, 828. They were “responsible for instilling ‘moral prohibitions,

behavioral standards, and a capacity for self-government that would prepare a child

for the outside world.’”

Id. at 828 (quoting S. Mintz & S. Kellogg, Domestic

Revolutions 58 (1988)). “In short, ‘home and family bore the major responsibility for

the moral training of children and thus, by implication, for the moral health of the

nation.’” Id. (alteration adopted) (quoting A. MacLeod, A Moral Tale 29 (1975)). And

laws across the States respected that arrangement. See id. at 832–34.

B.

This Court’s Precedents Have Recognized this Fundamental

Right.

Consistent with that history, this Court has long recognized that “it is the

natural duty of the parent,” with its “[c]orresponding . . . right of control,” to direct

“his children[’s] education suitable to their station in life.” Meyer v. Nebraska, 262

U.S. 390, 400 (1923). That primacy of the parent inheres in “our constitutional

system” and historical understandings, which “long ago rejected any notion that a

6

child is ‘the mere creature of the State.’” Parham v. J.R., 442 U.S. 584, 602 (1979)

(citation omitted). Parents instead “have the right, coupled with the high duty, to

recognize and prepare [their children] for additional obligations.” Pierce, 268 U.S. at

535.

As part of that right, this Court has come to articulate “a presumption that fit

parents act in the best interests of their children.” Troxel, 530 U.S. at 68 (plurality

op.). “Accordingly, so long as a parent adequately cares for his or her children (i.e., is

fit), there will normally be no reason for the State to inject itself into the private realm

of the family to further question the ability of that parent to make the best decisions

concerning the rearing of that parent’s children.” Id. at 68–69.

This Court has applied that principle time and again to reject state overreach

into the parent-child relationship. In Meyer, this Court struck down a state statute

that criminalized the schooling of children in any language but English. 262 U.S. at

397. The Court reasoned that “liberty,” “[w]ithout doubt,” includes “the right of the

individual to . . . establish a home and bring up children.” Id. at 399. The statute

violated the Constitution because it intruded upon “the power of parents to control

the education of their own.” Id. at 401.

Two years later, in Pierce, this Court struck down an Oregon law that required

all children to attend public school. 268 U.S. at 530. Through this law, Oregon had

“sought ideological conformity among its citizens,” seeking to railroad unpopular

religious minorities and immigrant communities in the process. Mahmoud v. Taylor,

606 U.S. 522, 587 (2025) (Thomas, J., concurring) (discussing Pierce). That effort,

7

however, “unreasonably interfere[d] with the liberty of parents and guardians to

direct the upbringing and education of children under their control.” Pierce, 268 U.S.

at 534–35.

And it violated “[t]he fundamental theory of liberty upon which all

governments in this Union repose,” which “excludes any general power of the state to

standardize its children.” Id. at 535.

Since then, this Court has consistently upheld the rights of fit parents to make

decisions regarding both the spiritual and worldly education of their children. Most

notably, in Yoder, this Court held that “a State’s interest in universal education,

however highly we rank it, is not totally free from a balancing process when it

impinges on fundamental rights and interests, such as those specifically protected by

the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, and the traditional interest of

parents with respect to the religious upbringing of their children.” 406 U.S. at 214.

Nor was it any answer to assert that “the child must be protected by the State.” Id.

at 222. “Under long-established precedent, parents—not the State—have primary

authority with respect to ‘the upbringing and education of children.’” Mirabelli, 607

U.S. at 497 (citation omitted).3

The parental rights safeguarded by the Constitution extend well beyond

education. This Court “has frequently emphasized the importance of the family” and

3 The question before this Court is of course a federal question, but it is noteworthy

that the people of Texas have gone even further in the Texas Constitution “[t]o

enshrine truths that are deeply rooted in this nation’s history and traditions” by

specifically affirming each parent’s “fundamental right to exercise care, custody, and

control of the parent’s child, including the right to make decisions concerning the

child’s upbringing.” Tex. Const. art. I, § 37.

8

parental rights against state interference of all sorts. Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S.

645, 651 (1972). After all, “[i]t is through the family that we inculcate and pass down

many of our most cherished values, moral and cultural.” Moore v. City of East

Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 503–04 (1977). It is therefore “cardinal with us that the

custody, care and nurture of the child reside first in the parents, whose primary

function and freedom include preparation for obligations the state can neither supply

nor hinder.” Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166 (1944). These broader rights

of parents to direct the upbringing of their children are “far more precious to [parents]

than property rights” or perhaps any other. May v. Anderson, 345 U.S. 528, 533

(1953).4

The Court thus has squarely, and consistently, recognized “that the

relationship between parent and child is constitutionally protected.” Quilloin, 434

U.S. at 255.

Just last year, this Court vindicated the rights of parents who sought to protect

their children from a public-school curriculum that was “designed to ‘disrupt’

children’s thinking about sexuality and gender.” Mahmoud, 606 U.S. at 529. There,

in recognition of a century of this Court’s precedent and centuries more of Western

legal tradition, this Court acknowledged the right of parents “to direct the religious

upbringing of their children.” Id. at 543 (quotation marks omitted). The Court again

4 Many courts have described the termination of parental rights as the civil death

penalty. See, e.g., In re D.T., 625 S.W.3d 62, 69 (Tex. 2021); Martinez-Cedillo v.

Sessions, 896 F.3d 979, 989 (9th Cir. 2018), vacated sub nom. 923 F.3d 1162 (9th Cir.

2019); Marcus Steven H. v. State Dep’t of Family Servs. (In re T.M.R.), 487 P.3d 783,

788 (Nev. 2021); In re K.A.W., 133 S.W.3d 1, 12 (Mo. 2004).

9

applied that principle just a few months ago to vacate a lower court’s stay of an

injunction. See Mirabelli, 607 U.S. at 497–98. It should do the same thing here.

Parents and government officials may often have fundamental disagreements

about what content and what degree of online freedom is appropriate for children.

But where those views clash, this Court has made clear that absent extraordinary

circumstances, the moral outlook of children should reflect the desires of their

parents, not the preferences of state legislators. The Constitution places the parents

in “primary” control. Id. at 497.

C.

SB 2420 Burdens the Rights of Parents to Direct Their

Children’s Upbringing.

SB 2420 impermissibly burdens the rights of parents. Indeed, it stands this

Court’s traditional “presumption” of non-interference in parents’ upbringing of their

children on its head. Parham, 442 U.S. at 602. Instead of assuming that fit parents

may decide what materials are and are not appropriate for their children—or

allowing them to use available tools to monitor and tailor their children’s app store

activity—the statute imposes a one-size-fits-all nanny state regime across the entire

State of Texas. Under SB 2420, every Texan under 18 must link his or her account to

a verified parent’s account and obtain express parental consent for any app download

or any in-app purchase, without even the possibility of blanket parental consent. See

Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 121.022(e)(1). Hence, SB 2420 requires parents to exercise

their authority through a government-mandated process, at government-mandated

intervals, and only after those parents and children are compelled to provide personal

information to third parties.

10

That is antithetical to this Court’s precedent, which protects parents’ authority

to decide how much supervision or independence their children may have. That is

one of the “fundamental” liberty interests protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 720–21 (1997).

And the Fourteenth

Amendment “forbids the government to infringe ‘fundamental’ liberty interests at

all . . . unless the infringement is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state

interest.” Id. at 721 (alteration adopted; citation omitted).

The State comes nowhere close to meeting that burden. There is no “historical

warrant or compelling justification” for a law that “prevent[s] children from hearing

or saying anything without their parents’ prior consent” at the State’s prescribed

times. Brown, 564 U.S. at 795 n.3 (emphasis omitted). While some parents may want

to approve every download, others may decide that a mature teenager who is already

capable of driving a motor vehicle, supervising their younger siblings, and working a

summer job, can, and should, have broad discretion over how he or she spends time

online. Other parents may choose to use the existing parental controls and family

settings that are available to them. See SEAT App. at 5; CCIA App. at 8–9, 34. But

SB 2420 eliminates all such discretion and instead imposes a single state-prescribed

model that supersedes individual parents’ judgment.

The law is not narrowly tailored either. Again, “[w]hile some of [SB 2420’s]

effect may indeed be in support of what some parents of the restricted children

actually want, its entire effect is only in support of what the State thinks parents

ought to want.” Brown, 564 U.S. at 804. And SB 2420 amounts to more than a mere

11

inconvenience for families: it is an unqualified and unprecedented intervention in

their day-to-day lives. There is simply no need to require a mom to approve every

download of an audiobook for her seventeen-year-old daughter or a dad to sign off

every time his fourteen-year-old son wants to listen to the latest episode of his favorite

podcast. This is not the “narrow tailoring” that the Constitution demands. Id. Nor

is it in the public interest to allow such an unconstitutional law to take effect.

II.

The Fifth Circuit’s Stay Order Should Be Vacated Because SB 2420

Impermissibly Burdens Speech.

SB 2420’s burden on the fundamental rights of parents supports the District

Court’s conclusion that the statute’s burden on speech cannot be justified under the

First Amendment. The Fifth Circuit too assumed that SB 2420 burdens speech, yet

the court granted Texas a stay pending appeal because it believed that the law passed

constitutional muster under intermediate scrutiny. App.4a–6a. That was wrong

twice over.

First, strict scrutiny, not intermediate scrutiny, applies.

The law is an

impermissible content-based regulation that favors some messages over others, and

it is thus subject to strict scrutiny. Second, SB 2420 fails both strict and intermediate

scrutiny alike.

Texas’s purported state interest of “restor[ing] parental

empowerment,” App.162a, does not constitute an important or compelling state

interest where, as here, it is really a means to substitute the judgment of the State

for the judgment of parents.

12

A.

Strict Scrutiny Applies.

In First Amendment cases, the level of scrutiny that courts must apply depends

on whether the speech regulation is “content-based” or “content-neutral.” Free Speech

Coal., Inc. v. Paxton, 606 U.S. 461, 471 (2025).

“‘Content-based laws—those that target speech based on its communicative

content—are presumptively unconstitutional and may be justified only if ’ they satisfy

strict scrutiny.” Id. (citation omitted). A law is content-based if it “singles out specific

subject matter for differential treatment, even if it does not target viewpoints within

that subject matter.” Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U.S. 155, 169 (2015). In that case,

the State must demonstrate that a speech regulation is “the least restrictive means

of achieving a compelling state interest.” Free Speech Coal., 606 U.S. at 471 (citation

omitted).

Content-neutral laws, by contrast, receive “intermediate” scrutiny.

Id.

(citation omitted). This requires a showing that the regulation “advances important

governmental interests unrelated to the suppression of free speech and does not

burden substantially more speech than necessary to further those interests.” Turner

Broadcasting Sys., Inc. v. FCC, 520 U.S. 180, 189 (1997).

Here, strict scrutiny applies. SB 2420 requires consent from a child’s parent

or guardian for “each individual download or purchase sought by the minor” of a

software application. Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 121.022(e)(1). But this requirement

does not apply to all applications in the app store. Instead, SB 2420 exempts a few

categories of applications, including, most notably, applications “operated by or in

13

partnership with a nonprofit organization,” which provide for standardized test

preparation for postsecondary education applications. Id. § 121.022(h).

This exception for postsecondary education test preparation manifests a clear

content preference by the State. The State, in its professed wisdom, reduces the

burdens on parents to allow students to prepare for forms of postsecondary education

that require standardized testing, but keeps those burdens in place for all other forms

of personal and professional development.

Parents who direct their child to

undertake a study of trade skills through a software application must sit over their

child’s shoulder and manually consent to every download within that application.

Parents who direct their child to study for the SAT do not. This is a straightforward

case of a speech regulation “subject[ing] each of these categories to different

restrictions.” Reed, 576 U.S. at 164.

B.

Regardless, SB 2420 Fails

Constitutional Scrutiny.

Any

Form

of

Heightened

In any event, the State’s governmental interest in SB 2420 is not sufficiently

compelling nor important enough to satisfy either strict or intermediate scrutiny. The

State’s claimed interest in “restor[ing] parental empowerment,” App.162a, actually

substitutes the State’s judgment for that of parents. Such an intrusion into parents’

rights to direct their children’s upbringings is not a compelling or important state

interest.

Justice Scalia’s opinion for the Court in Brown is instructive. There, California

prohibited the sale of violent video games to minors, allowing minors to obtain these

video games only if an adult purchased the games for them. Brown, 564 U.S. at 789.

14

California’s claimed interest in support of the speech regulation was, like here, the

“aid[ing] of parental authority.” Id. at 802. Yet this Court did not accept the State’s

intrusion into the parent-child relationship as a legitimate government interest.

Instead, the Court made clear its “doubts that punishing third parties for conveying

protected speech to children just in case their parents disapprove of that speech is a

proper governmental means of aiding parental authority.” Id. These types of aids to

parental authority, the Court reasoned, are really just “what the State thinks parents

ought to want.” Id. at 804. That interest is neither compelling nor important. It only

“deprives parents of choice.” CCIA App. at 35.

III.

SB 2420 Treats Mundane Online Activity as If It Were Obscenity and

Worse than Equivalent Offline Activity.

Finally, for many of the reasons laid out in the Applications, SB 2420 is nothing

like the age-verification law for pornography websites upheld by the Court in Free

Speech Coalition. Unlike the statute there, which was a rational, loophole-closing

solution to a legitimate problem, the statute here is a solution in search of a problem.

First, unlike the obscene materials targeted by the statute in Free Speech

Coalition, the statute in this case casts a much wider net and targets virtually all

materials that may be downloaded by minors online. That is far beyond the ambit of

Texas’s power. “History, tradition, and precedent recognize that States have two

distinct powers to address obscenity: They may proscribe outright speech that is

obscene to the public at large, and they may prevent children from accessing speech

that is obscene to children.” Free Speech Coal., 606 U.S. at 472 (emphasis added). In

that way, “States can impose greater limits on children’s access to sexually explicit

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speech than they can on adults’ access.” Id. at 473. Such restrictions on access to

obscene materials are consistent with age restrictions for access to other historically

disfavored and heavily regulated goods and services, including alcohol, tobacco,

gambling, tattoos, body piercings, and fireworks. See id. at 479.

But SB 2420 implicates precisely none of these concerns. It does not target

goods and services that have long been understood to be disfavored and subject to age

verification, much less those that are undisputedly obscene for minors—and therefore

constitutionally unprotected. See id. at 482. Rather, the law targets virtually all

apps and all in-app downloads.

That only confirms that the law is wildly

overinclusive to any possibly legitimate state interest.

Second, the age-verification statute in Free Speech Coalition merely brought a

regulatory regime that already existed offline into the digital world. It created a

uniform regulatory framework to govern minors’ ability to access obscene materials.

See id. at 465–66 (noting that Texas’s prohibition on “the distribution of sexually

explicit content to children . . . . may be effective against brick-and-mortar stores,”

but it “proved challenging to enforce against online content,” and the statute in Free

Speech Coalition was designed “to address this problem”); see also Tex. Penal Code

§ 43.24(b) (pre-Free Speech Coalition statute prohibiting the distribution of obscene

materials to minors offline).

Instead of standardizing the legal regime across the online and offline worlds,

SB 2420 does the exact opposite. Indeed, it uniquely penalizes minors and their

parents from mundane online content. Under SB 2420’s two-tiered regime, while a

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12-year-old may spend her allowance to purchase To Kill a Mockingbird at a

bookstore with no questions asked, she would be subject to age verification before

downloading the exact same book through the app store. Nothing in Free Speech

Coalition permits, much less mandates, that result.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the Court should vacate the Fifth Circuit’s stay

pending appeal.

Respectfully submitted,

MICHAEL H. MCGINLEY

BRIAN A. KULP

DECHERT LLP

Cira Centre

2929 Arch Street

Philadelphia, PA 19104

STEVEN A. ENGEL

Counsel of Record

RILEY D. COMPTON

DECHERT LLP

1900 K Street, NW

Washington, DC 20006

(202) 261-3369

steven.engel@dechert.com

GARY M. DREYER

DECHERT LLP

Three Bryant Park

1095 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10036

Counsel for Amicus Curiae Patriot Voices, Inc.

June 19, 2026

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