The Austin school district, one of the largest in the state, will not comply with a request from the Republican leader of the Texas House General Investigating Committee to confirm whether it carries certain books in its libraries.

“After doing more legal research, we've decided that a response is not necessary, especially since anyone can search our library catalogs,” said district spokesman Jason Stanford.

It marks the first report of a district disregarding the letter sent by the committee’s chair, state Rep. Matt Krause, who is running against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the GOP primary. Democratic members of the committee, including its vice chair, have said they were not consulted before the letter went out and do not endorse its contents.

Krause did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but his office has said it’s the committee’s policy not to comment on pending investigations.

In the Oct. 25 letter, Krause had asked a select number of districts to provide information on how many books on a list of more than 850 that he provided to them they carried in school and classroom libraries and how much they cost to acquire.

He also asked districts to come up with their own lists of any other books that touch on human sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases or any material that “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” because of their race or sex.

Democrats and education groups have denounced the effort as a precursor to future censorship.

“Censorship in any form is not only a threat to individual knowledge and growth, but to the foundation of our democracy,” Texas Library Association Executive Director Shirley Robinson said in a statement. “Limiting education does a tremendous disservice to Texas students and their communities, which need engaged and informed citizens that can address future challenges.”

In the letter, Krause, a founding member of the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus, described the impetus for the inquiry as a series of controversies at Texas school districts — Carroll, Spring Branch, Lake Travis, Leander and Katy — involving books that parents wanted pulled from shelves.

Krause has said his goal was to ensure compliance with House Bill 3979, the controversial legislation Gov. Greg Abbott signed in June that limits what teachers can talk about when it comes to race and history in America and prohibits the teaching of “critical race theory.”

Out of 15 districts that confirmed to Hearst Newspapers that they received the letter, Austin Independent School District is the only one to say it would not respond.

Most districts said they are still reviewing the request with attorneys and other staff. Northwest ISD in Denton County and North East ISD in Bexar County were the only districts to say definitively that they would respond.

The request so far came in the form of a letter to superintendents, but the committee has subpoena power and could exercise it. Disobeying a subpoena could lead a district to be prosecuted for being in contempt, which is punishable by up to a year in prison.

Since the House committee’s request for information was an informal one that was neither a subpoena nor a public records request, it is open to “substantial interpretation,” said Joy Baskin, director of legal services for the Texas Association of School Boards.

As such, some districts may treat the letter as a public information request — which could take more time than the Nov. 12 deadline it sets and may not guarantee Krause the right to certain information, she said.

The cost of an individual book, for example, is not something districts tend to track in the budget process, and another part of Krause’s request asks districts to look for books that meet certain criteria. Texas’ open records law does not require governmental bodies to prepare answers to questions or compile statistics from already public data.

“I would say that most districts are likely to consider that a request for the district to conduct an investigation, and if you really think about it, it would theoretically require the district to review all books,” Baskin said, adding that for large districts, that could mean inventorying hundreds of thousands of books at multiple campuses.

“Given the scope of the request, even if it had been served as a subpoena, I don’t think a district could easily comply because it still requires a fair amount of interpretation.”

Nine of 20 of the state’s largest districts with student populations over 50,000 confirmed to Hearst Newspapers that they received the letter, including El Paso, Frisco, Houston, Katy, North East and Northside.

It’s unclear which districts received copies of the letter — as Krause’s office and the Texas Education Agency have declined to say — as well as how Krause came up with the list of books in question, which include Pulitzer Prize winners and other best-sellers by diverse authors.

In an interview with Dallas talk show host Mark Davis on Friday, Krause suggested the list was meant to cover books that could possibly be in violation of bills passed by lawmakers this year, including one that limited what Texas teachers can talk about when it comes to race and history in America.

“That book list isn’t exhaustive. It’s not exclusive,” he said. “The mere presence of a book on that list does not mean it is problematic. It just means that it has some content in it that may be touched by new provisions that were passed by the Texas Legislature.” taylor.goldenstein

@chron.com