The Computer & Communications Industry Association filed an emergency application asking the justices to vacate a Fifth Circuit stay and block enforcement of Texas SB 2420, the App Store Accountability Act, while the constitutional challenge proceeds. SCOTUSblog reported on 15 June that the justices had been urged to stop Texas from enforcing age-verification and parental-consent requirements for apps.
The law requires app-store owners to verify a Texas user’s age category when an account is created. The enrolled bill says minors’ accounts must be affiliated with a parent or guardian account, and that parental consent is required before a minor downloads an app or makes purchases in an app. It also requires developers to assign age ratings and provide app stores with the content or elements that led to those ratings.
That structure is what makes the case different from adult-site age-verification disputes. Texas is not only regulating access to a category of sexual content. It is putting age checks and parental approval at the app-store layer, before a user reaches news apps, educational apps, games, social platforms, religious content or political material. CCIA argues in its Supreme Court filing that the law burdens access to lawful speech and imposes obligations on app stores and developers that violate the First Amendment.
The procedural posture is narrow but important. A stay is a court order that pauses the effect of another order. Here, the federal district court had blocked enforcement of the law, and the Fifth Circuit allowed Texas to enforce it for now while appeal proceedings continue. CCIA is asking the Supreme Court to undo that stay, which would restore the block during the litigation.
The Texas Tribune reported that the Fifth Circuit allowed the law to go into effect after blocking a temporary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman in Austin. The Tribune reported that Pitman had found the restrictions likely violated the First Amendment. The emergency application therefore does not ask the Supreme Court to decide the entire case now. It asks the Court to decide who bears the risk while the case is litigated: Texas, if enforcement is paused, or app stores, developers and users, if it continues.