[aiforecastthway]

> It drives me crazy when people make argument like this without pointing to the actual legislation.

The first sentence of the article reads "A bill set to be heard by the Judiciary and Jurisprudence Committee at the Texas House is sparking criticism from small business owners across the state. ".

The text "Judiciary and Jurisprudence Committee" is a hyperlink. That hyperlink takes you to the bill tracker.

> After reading the bill, I don’t see the argument.

Introducing civil liability has a chilling effect on commerce (and, therefore, speech). From the article:

"The biggest concern that we have is that for small businesses, first of all, we can’t afford the lawsuits."

[codeddesign]

Again…I don’t see the argument. There are already laws at federal and state levels..in every state.

Are you saying that while a company would be responsible (current laws), an employee should not because of free speech?? (proposed law)

[fweimer]

It's not entirely clear, but the bill may try to extend liability to the first sale (or even earlier) also in cases where this sale wasn't to a minor (however a minor gained access subsequently). That would be quite different from existing law, wouldn't it?

[aiforecastthway]

> Are you saying that while a company would be responsible (current laws), an employee should not because of free speech?? (proposed law)

Absolutely. Circumscribing liability in civil actions is one of the fundamental purposes of commercial legal structures; to wit, the two L's in "LLC" stand for "Limited Liability".

The basic principle of limited liability has been deeply embedded in the USA's system of free commerce since its founding. Historically, there has always been a high bar for exceptions to this general principle. I think that should still be the case.

I have two reasons for this.

The first is selfish. The legal exposure risked by an hourly employee working at a bookstore would be far too great to justify the wages earned. The lines of "obscenity" are blurry enough that the risk to any employee would be substantial.

If the business chose to indemnify their employees and owners -- which they likely would need to do in order to employ anyone -- then that indemnification would be part of a larger legal insurance policy.

I do not own a book store, but I do own a large stake in a business. I carry a legal insurance policy (actually, two). These bookstores are probably part of the same risk pool that I'm buying into. Which means that if some random Karen is angry that a character in a book had two moms, my insurance premiums get to pay for that bullshit.

The second reason is more principled. The intent of the proposed exception is to establish a statutory framework that would allow conservative religious groups to use civil courts to harass their ideological enemies. I do not find common cause with that purpose, because I do not believe in bullying people into silence via the State's courts, because I am a proud American.

BTW: if the employee's actions are criminal, then the state can already prosecute that individual employee. Allowing private civil actions is extraneous, unless the ultimate goal is coercive or political. Weaponizing our system of commerce to wage culture wars was a bad idea when the intolerant left was doing it a decade ago, it was a bad idea when the intolerant evangelical right was doing in two decades ago, and it is a bad idea now that the new right is doing it.