The state can’t be sued for Idaho’s library law, Attorney General Raúl Labrador’s office argues, because private citizens are responsible for enforcing it.
In a new court filing, Labrador’s office responded to a coalition — made up of private schools, a church, a library and a handful of parents — that filed a lawsuit challenging the Children’s School and Library Protection Act. The coalition last month sued the state and two county prosecutors, asking the U.S. District Court for Idaho to declare the law unconstitutional and block its enforcement.
In response to the coalition’s request for an injunction, Deputy Attorney General Aaron Green argued Friday that the state isn’t responsible for enforcing the law. Instead, House Bill 710 handed an enforcement mechanism to parents whose children obtain “harmful material” from the library. Those parents can sue the library for civil damages and attorney fees.
This enforcement mechanism, known as a “private right of action,” has frequently appeared in Idaho policymaking in recent years. Legislation spanning abortion and health care to public school teachers’ use of pronouns have included private right-of-action mechanisms.
Green’s argument resembles one that foiled abortion providers’ 2021 attempt to block the Texas Heartbeat Act, which allowed private citizens to sue anyone who facilitated an illegal abortion. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Texas attorney general, judges and court clerks couldn’t be sued for a law private citizens enforce.
The challenge to Idaho’s library law is “squarely barred” by the Supreme Court decision, Green wrote. “The private right-of-action is, on its face, not a provision enforceable by the attorney general or other defendants.”
Green also argued that the private schools in the coalition lack standing to challenge the law, because they argue that their libraries don’t have material “harmful to minors” and nobody has sued the schools arguing that they do. And Green argued that the law constitutionally incorporates the Miller Test, a longstanding legal test that determines whether expression is obscene and unprotected by the First Amendment.
Green asked the court to dismiss the coalition’s motion for an injunction.
The coalition, meanwhile, has argued that the law’s “vague and overbroad definition” of material “harmful to minors” limits the ability of private schools and libraries to offer “non-obscene content that is disfavored by the state.” The law also “infringes on the fundamental liberty interest of parents” who chose private schools and libraries for their children, the coalition’s complaint said, and denies minors the right to “receive constitutionally protected, non-obscene material.”
Earlier this month, the coalition asked the federal court to advance filing deadlines in the case, as the new school year is underway for Foothills School of Arts and Sciences and starts next week for Sun Valley Community School. Both private schools are plaintiffs.
District Judge Amanda Brailsford denied that request on Aug. 9, giving Labrador’s office and two county prosecutors listed as defendants more time to respond.
On the same day, Ada County Prosecutor Jan Bennetts asked the court to dismiss her office as a defendant, because the coalition made no attempt to show that it stands “in the crosshairs” of enforcement by the county. Blaine County Prosecutor Matthew Fredback concurred with Bennetts’ motion and similarly asked that his office be dismissed.
Challenges to state laws, like the coalition’s, often name local prosecutors as defendants because they’re responsible for enforcing Idaho law. The federal court, as of Tuesday, has yet to rule on the local prosecutors’ requests.
