Texas AG, Media Outlets Can’t Establish Standing, Says State Department’s Reply

The “speculative theory” behind the censorship complaint brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and the Daily Wire and Federalist media outlets “cannot establish standing as a matter of law,” said the State Department’s reply memorandum Wednesday (docket 6:23-cv-00609) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas in Tyler in support of its March 25 motion to dismiss. Paxton and the media outlets allege that the State Department, through its Global Engagement Center, "is actively intervening" to render "disfavored" press outlets unprofitable by funding the marketing and promotion of "censorship technology and private censorship enterprises to covertly suppress speech of a segment of the American press" (see 2312060043). Named as defendants are Secretary of State Antony Blinken and five other State Department officials. The media plaintiffs show “no concrete, certainly impending injury-in-fact as required for prospective injunctive relief,” said the reply memorandum. Moreover, any such injury “would depend on the independent actions of third parties and is therefore not traceable” to the defendants or redressable by the court, it said. As for Texas, none of the alleged conduct interferes with its enforcement of HB-20, the state’s social media content moderation law (see 2401180048), said the reply memorandum. Even if it did, Texas isn’t currently enforcing HB-20, and this litigation “will not change that reality,” it said.