Texas officials urged the Supreme Court to deny emergency petitions filed by a pair of activist groups to stop the implementation of the Lone Star State’s law requiring app stores to verify users’ ages.
The Supreme Court is considering a pair of emergency petitions filed by Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, a left-wing education activist group, and the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a lobbying group for the technology industry, asking it to halt enforcement of Senate Bill 2420, which imposes the age verification requirement on app stores and requires parental permission for minors to download apps, alleging it is a violation of the First Amendment. Texas officials, in their response to the petition, told the high court the restriction is no different than other safeguards implemented by state governments intended to protect minors.
“Just as States have long protected minors from alcohol, cigarettes, and other harmful products, S.B. 2420 protects children against dangerous modern products,” said the response from Texas to the high court.
The response from Texas Solicitor General William Peterson also noted that the law does not discriminate on the types of apps that require age verification and puts parents in control of which apps their children may download.
“To protect parents’ ability to make decisions concerning their children’s upbringing in the modern world, S.B. 2420 requires disclosures to parents and parental consent for minors to acquire software applications from ‘app stores,’ which ‘distribute[] software applications from the owner or developer of a software application to the user of a mobile device,’” Texas’s response said.
“With narrow exceptions for one provision, S.B. 2420 applies to all software applications, regardless of their content and regardless whether they would receive any First Amendment protection. The Texas State Legislature consciously ‘[did] not want to discriminate against apps,’” the filing continued.
A federal district court blocked enforcement of the law in December 2025, days before it was set to go into effect, finding it likely violated the First Amendment. A panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit lifted the injunction on the law weeks ago, finding that Texas was likely to succeed in the First Amendment lawsuit. The Supreme Court does not have a timeline for when it will issue a ruling on the petition, but it is expected to do so in the coming weeks.
SUPREME COURT URGED TO BLOCK TEXAS APP STORE AGE VERIFICATION LAW
On the Supreme Court’s merits docket, the high court is slated to wrap up its current term over the next week, when it issues the remaining 17 opinions in cases it heard over the past several months. Some of the most closely watched cases awaiting a ruling include legal challenges to Trump’s firing ability, a pair of state laws barring biological men from women’s sports, and laws allowing late-arriving mail ballots to be counted.
The Supreme Court has stated it will release opinions on Tuesday and Thursday, but could still add additional opinion days this week or next week.
