EDITOR’S NOTE: The original version of this post incorrectly stated that the court had granted the order of a preliminary injunction proposed by the plaintiffs. The post has been amended the post to reflect that the filing in question is the plaintiffs’ proposed order, not an order issued by the court. YNOT regrets the error and will provide another update when the court has ruled on the proposed order.
AUSTIN — In a proposed order filed by the plaintiffs in Valadez v. Paxton, the plaintiffs have asked District Judge Robert Pitman, a magistrate for the Austin Division of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, to find that the plaintiffs “”have a substantial likelihood of success on their claims that S.B. 315’s age restrictions on employment or work at or with a ‘sexually oriented business’ are unconstitutional,” and grant a preliminary injunction in the case.
“The challenged amendments to Texas law infringe the individual Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights to engage in expression and association for expressive purposes,” the proposed order states. “The same holds true for members of the Plaintiff Classes.”
The proposed order adds that “the age restrictions are not likely to satisfy intermediate scrutiny because they do not further a substantial governmental interest and they are no mere incidental restriction on First Amendment freedoms” and “they are far greater than is essential to the furtherance of the state’s interests.”
“Without an injunction, Plaintiffs and members of the Plaintiff Classes will suffer irreparable injury,” the plaintiffs add in their proposed order. “The challenged provisions inflict broad sweeping constitutional injury upon all of them. The balance of harms favors Plaintiffs and Plaintiff Class Members, and a preliminary injunction will serve the public interest.”
The plaintiffs also assert that “granting preliminary injunctive relief on a class-wide basis is appropriate,” noting they have proposed three classes.
First, there is a “Due Process Plaintiff Class,” which would include “all persons in the State of Texas between the ages of 18 and 20 years old who have been, or would be, employed or contracted to provide, any lawful work or service at or with” a sexually-oriented business or any “sexually oriented commercial activity” under Texas law, but for S.B. 315’s amendments to state law.
The second proposed class is a “First Amendment Plaintiff Subclass,” the description of which mirrors the Due Process Plaintiff class, only instead of “any lawful work or service,” members of the First Amendment Plaintiff Subclass would be those who specifically provide “any lawful work or service involving protected expression or association for expressive purposes” — a group that includes the state’s exotic dancers.
The third proposed class is the “Defendant Class,” characterized as “all district, county, and city attorneys in the State of Texas with authority to prosecute, sue, or enforce Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code” and/or “Texas Penal Code § 43.251,” as those sections have been amended by section 8 of S.B. 315. (The plaintiffs have proposed the Attorney General as the class representative for the Defendant Class.)
YNOT will continue to follow this case and report on future developments.
