The arguments over book bans that have engulfed a Central Texas county are now spilling over into local political races.

Why it matters: The goings-on in Llano County are a window into just how much issues of cultural friction, free speech and parental control dominate rural, deep-red Texas politics.

Catch up quick: Alleging a "literary witch hunt," a handful of Llano County residents in 2022 asked a federal judge to stop officials from removing public library books, claiming their First Amendment rights had been violated.

• An appeal in the ongoing lawsuit is now before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Friction point: Louis "Bull" Guthrie, a Republican candidate for an open county commissioner seat, says on his website that Llano County libraries are "under attack by people who believe child porn fiction books should be on our bookshelves and readily accessible to our children.

• "As Commissioner, I will stand with the community and fight against ... the pedophiles that are hiding like sewer rats under the banner of 'Freedom of Speech.'"

The other side: The local Middle of Texas PAC, formed to promote moderate candidates, is backing another Republican in the race, Karen Shaw, a retired teacher and school administrator.

• The county "didn't follow their own policies, and it got blown way out of proportion," Shaw said earlier this month.

What's next: Key figures in the Llano book banning movement are promoting challengers in an upcoming school board election.

• At a Llano Tea Party meeting this month, Bonnie Wallace, a conservative activist who served on the county library advisory board, told audience members they should oust school board member Rob Wilson.
• In a video posted on Facebook, Wallace asserted, without providing any support, that Wilson's wife, a Llano school district elementary school librarian, "loves porn and puts it in the elementary school."

Of note: Wilson's wife was named Citizen of the Year by the Llano Chamber of Commerce in 2018.

Wallace, Wilson, Wilson's wife and the Llano ISD superintendent did not respond to Axios interview requests.

• "They have blasphemed this woman's name," Diane Custy Moster, another organizer of the Middle of Texas PAC and a plaintiff in the lawsuit, tells Axios.

Dig deeper

The best way to combat historical imbalances in nonprofit leadership is with mentor programs and transparent board recruitment processes, per a report to be released today by an Austin organization.

Why it matters: The findings come as key Texas institutions have shuttered their DEI initiatives and corporations are generally rethinking their diversity strategies, part of a larger backlash to social justice reforms inspired by the reaction to George Floyd's 2020 murder.

Driving the news: The report, "Breaking Barriers: Bridging the Nonprofit Board Representation Gap," examines a cycle in which existing board members tend to recruit individuals similar to themselves.

• It was conducted by Measure, an Austin-based research and data firm, for The New Philanthropists.

Background: The New Philanthropists was founded by Monica Maldonado-Williams and Mando Rayo to build a leadership pipeline for people of color and cultivate diversity within nonprofit boards.

By the numbers: Since 2019, TNP has had more than 200 mentees and more than 40 mentors participate in its Board Mentors of Color Program, which supports leaders of color in navigating Austin nonprofit boards.

What they're saying: "If I had not gone through New Philanthropists, when it came time for someone to say to me, 'It's time to run for city council,' I never would have thought of it," Kimberly Holiday, the first Black woman to serve on Pflugerville's City Council and a NAMI Central Texas board member, tells Axios.

• "They reminded me that my voice mattered at the table, and that it's okay to shake it up and make people uncomfortable."

🏛️ A Texas Supreme Court justice running for re-election has been chronically absent from court. (Austin American-Statesman)

🏀 The Texas men's basketball team is poised to make the NCAA tournament after a key win at Texas Tech last night. (Burnt Orange Nation)

Quote du jour

"The work will never conclude on Interstate 35 between Austin and San Antonio, I can say that pretty definitively."

Relatively few Austin millennials live with their parents, per the latest U.S. Census Bureau data.

The big picture: The latest census figures show 9.1% of Austin millennials were living with their parents in 2022, Axios' Erin Davis reports.

• That's nearly at the bottom of 163 metros in the dataset.

Zoom out: The number of Americans aged 25–34 living at home has jumped over 87% in the past two decades, according to census data.

Context: The Axios analysis defined millennials as people who were ages 26-41 in 2022.

Our thought bubble: We doubt Austin's low millennial live-in rate is because Austin millennials are somehow more self-sufficient — or that their parents are less likely to welcome them home.

• Drawn here for reasons from jobs to weather — hard to imagine, right? — a lot of Austin millennials simply live in different states from their parents, which may explain why Austin has a much smaller share of millennials living with parents.

🕶️ Asher here.

While reporting on the political winds in Llano County, I stopped by the general store in Bluffton, a speck of a town about 13 miles north-northeast of the county seat.

What we're seeing: Bluffton is in the path of totality, and on hand were solar eclipse glasses and T-shirts to memorialize the moment.

Fun fact: The biggest sellers are the koozies.

The bottom line: The movement of the celestial bodies now comes in 100% cotton.