LIA Network v. City of Kerrville: Evidence‑Based Intermediate Scrutiny and Narrow As‑Applied Relief in Pre‑Enforcement First Amendment Challenges

I. Introduction

In LIA Network v. City of Kerrville, No. 24-50788 (5th Cir. Dec. 19, 2025), the Fifth Circuit delivered a significant First Amendment decision at the intersection of:

door-to-door canvassing and solicitation regulation,
pre‑enforcement challenges and standing doctrine,
the government’s evidentiary burden under intermediate scrutiny, and
the scope of preliminary injunctions in as‑applied versus facial challenges.

A citizen advocacy group, LIA Network (“LIA”), and two individual activists, Terri Hall and Rachel Vickers, challenged a Kerrville, Texas ordinance regulating “Canvassers” and “Solicitors.” The ordinance covered:

a curfew on canvassing/soliciting (8 p.m.–8 a.m.),
a ban on canvassing/soliciting at homes with “No Soliciting” or similar signs,
a ban on soliciting in streets and medians,
a permitting regime for solicitors, including fingerprinting and background checks, and
a separate permitting requirement for minors who solicit (“Minor Permitting Provision”).

The plaintiffs filed a pre-enforcement First Amendment suit and requested a preliminary injunction against all five provisions. The district court:

found standing for all but the minor-permitting provision,
enjoined the permitting requirement for solicitors, but
refused to enjoin the hours, signs, and streets provisions.

On appeal, the Fifth Circuit affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded, clarifying:

how plaintiffs can establish standing in pre-enforcement, as‑applied First Amendment challenges,
that even content‑neutral regulations must be justified with real, evidenced harms under intermediate scrutiny,
that definitions embedded in an ordinance (such as “Canvasser”) can render otherwise facially neutral time/place restrictions content‑based, and
that preliminary injunctions must track the scope of an as‑applied challenge and not automatically become facial, ordinance‑wide prohibitions.

II. Summary of the Opinion

A. Parties and Ordinance

Plaintiffs–Appellants/Cross‑Appellees
- LIA Network, a 501(c)(4) citizen advocacy organization based in Kerrville, engaging in political education, canvassing, and fundraising.
- Terri Hall, co-founder and director of LIA, a religious and charitable activist who canvasses, evangelizes, and fundraises door-to-door and in streets/medians, and whose children solicit for 4‑H and scouting organizations.
- Rachel Vickers, a politically engaged LIA volunteer and small business owner who canvasses and markets her business door-to-door.
Defendant–Appellee/Cross‑Appellant
- City of Kerrville, Texas, which in March 2024 enacted an ordinance regulating:
  - “Canvassers”: persons making uninvited residential contact to “enlist support” for or against a religion, philosophy, ideology, political party, issue, or candidate (even if they also accept donations).
  - “Solicitors”: persons making uninvited residential contact to sell goods or services or seek contributions of money or value; and persons distributing handbills or flyers “advertising services for educational, political, charitable, religious, or other purposes,” which are deemed “solicitors.”

The ordinance then imposed five key restrictions:

Hours Provision (Section 30‑179): bans canvassing and soliciting at residences between 8:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m.
Signs Provision (Section 30‑180): bans canvassing and soliciting at private property with “No Solicitors,” “No Trespassing,” or similar signs.
Streets Provision (Section 30‑183): bans soliciting in “the streets, street rights‑of‑way, or medians of the City.”
Permitting Provision (Section 30‑182): requires anyone who “Solicits” within the city to first obtain a city permit, pay a fee, and undergo fingerprinting and a background check.
Minor Permitting Provision (Section 30‑185): bans persons under 18 from soliciting unless sponsored by a permitted person, company, or organization.

Violations are punishable by fines of $50–$500 per hour.

B. Procedural Posture

Plaintiffs brought § 1983 claims for First and Fourteenth Amendment violations, raising both as‑applied and facial challenges to each provision.
The district court:
- found standing for LIA and Hall as to hours, signs, streets, and permitting; for Vickers as to signs and permitting; but no standing for any plaintiff as to the minor permitting provision;
- denied a preliminary injunction as to hours, signs, and streets; and
- granted a preliminary injunction facially enjoining the permitting regime.
Both sides appealed.

C. Core Holdings

The Fifth Circuit held:

Standing
- Affirmed: LIA and Hall have standing to challenge the Hours, Signs, Streets, and Permitting Provisions; Vickers has standing to challenge the Signs and Permitting Provisions.
- Affirmed: No plaintiff has standing to challenge the Minor Permitting Provision because it regulates minors’ conduct and no minor is a plaintiff or represented.
Hours & Signs Provisions – Content-Based, Strict Scrutiny
- The definition of “Canvasser” is textbook content-based: it singles out speech aimed at religious, philosophical, ideological, political, and similar advocacy.
- The district court erred by treating these provisions as content-neutral and applying intermediate scrutiny.
- Reversed and remanded for reconsideration under strict scrutiny, focusing first on the as‑applied challenge.
Streets Provision – Fails Intermediate Scrutiny
- Assuming (without deciding) that the Streets Provision is content-neutral, the City failed to meet even intermediate scrutiny.
- The City’s post‑hoc traffic‑safety justification is unsupported by any evidence; the ordinance’s preamble shows it was instead motivated by privacy and annoyance concerns.
- The City also failed to demonstrate narrow tailoring, as required by cases such as McCullen v. Coakley.
- Reversed the district court’s denial of likely success on the merits for Hall and LIA and remanded for analysis of the remaining injunction factors and for appropriately scoped relief.
Permitting Provision – Narrow Tailoring Failure; Overbroad Injunction
- Again assuming content neutrality, the City failed to show narrow tailoring of the permit, fingerprinting, and background‑check requirements to its asserted goals of preventing crime and protecting privacy.
- The plaintiffs have a substantial likelihood of success on their as‑applied challenge, and the remaining injunction factors favor relief.
- Affirmed the grant of a preliminary injunction in principle but vacated the injunction as overbroad because it barred all enforcement of the Permitting Provision against anyone.
- Remanded for the district court to craft a narrower injunction tailored to protect these plaintiffs only.
Facial vs. As‑Applied
- The panel treated the case as an as‑applied pre-enforcement challenge, notwithstanding some facial analysis below.
- It reiterated the Fifth Circuit’s rule that courts should address as‑applied challenges first, moving to facial (overbreadth) review only if the law is valid as applied to the plaintiff.

III. Standing and Pre‑Enforcement Challenges

A. Injury‑in‑Fact in First Amendment Pre‑Enforcement Cases

The City argued that because the ordinance had never been enforced against the plaintiffs, they suffered no injury and therefore lacked standing. The Fifth Circuit, relying on Speech First, Inc. v. Fenves and Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, rejected that argument and applied the familiar three‑part test for pre‑enforcement First Amendment injuries:

Intent to engage in constitutionally protected conduct;
Intended conduct is arguably proscribed by the challenged law; and
A substantial threat of future enforcement, such that speech is credibly chilled.

On the first two elements, the court’s analysis was straightforward:

The plaintiffs intend to engage in core First Amendment activity: political canvassing, religious evangelism, charitable solicitation, and commercial solicitation.
Those activities fit squarely within the ordinance’s definitions of “Canvassing” and “Soliciting,” and the affidavits explicitly describe conduct that would violate the hours, signs, streets, and permitting provisions.

B. The “Credible Threat of Enforcement” Requirement

The third element—credible threat of enforcement—was “the closest question.” Here the court articulated and applied an important, practice‑oriented standard:

To show a credible threat in an as‑applied pre‑enforcement case, plaintiffs should identify:
- prior enforcement against similarly situated parties; and/or
- a refusal to disavow enforcement against them.
No enforcement history existed, but:
- At the preliminary‑injunction stage, evidentiary demands are relaxed.
- The City repeatedly refused to disavow enforcement and even acknowledged that:
  - plaintiffs’ political canvassing is “Canvassing” within the ordinance; and
  - Vickers’s business solicitation required a permit.
The court added an important gloss: the closer the fit between the plaintiff’s intended conduct and the statute’s text, the less plaintiff‑specific evidence is required to show a credible threat. Here, the ordinance was crafted precisely to regulate the kind of canvassing and solicitation the plaintiffs engage in.

By comparing to Braidwood Management v. EEOC, the panel analogized the ordinance’s potential fines to a “Damocles’ sword” hanging over the plaintiffs: when a law clearly covers their conduct and the government won’t disclaim enforcement, chilling is reasonable and actionable.

C. Organizational Standing and 501(c)(4) Status

The City also attacked LIA’s standing, arguing that as a 501(c)(4) it could not lawfully engage in political activity. The Fifth Circuit dismissed this as a misreading of tax law and precedent:

501(c)(4) organizations may engage in political activity so long as they remain “primarily engaged” in promoting social welfare.
The panel cited the Supreme Court’s note in FEC v. Beaumont recognizing that 501(c)(4)s can lawfully conduct some political activities.

The City further “questioned” whether LIA’s board had authorized the lawsuit, but provided no evidence. The court correctly treated this as irrelevant to Article III standing absent legal authority linking internal corporate formalities to standing.

D. Lack of Standing for the Minor Permitting Provision

By contrast, the court affirmed the denial of standing as to the Minor Permitting Provision. The key points:

That provision governs the conduct of persons under 18 who solicit.
No minors were plaintiffs, and Hall did not sue on behalf of her children or assert third‑party standing.
Article III requires the threatened injury to be suffered “by the plaintiff, not someone else.” Adults cannot challenge a legal regime that regulates only minors’ actions unless specific doctrines of third‑party or associational standing are properly invoked.

The panel thus clarified that even in First Amendment cases, there must be a direct or properly represented connection between the plaintiff and the regulated class when challenging specific provisions.

IV. The Preliminary Injunction Framework and Burden‑Shifting

The court reiterated the standard four‑factor test for preliminary injunctions:

substantial likelihood of success on the merits,
irreparable injury absent an injunction,
balance of harms, and
public interest.

But, critically, in First Amendment cases the usual allocation of burdens is altered:

The plaintiff must show that her speech is being restricted by the law.
Once that is shown, she is “presumptively” likely to succeed unless the government carries the burden of demonstrating the law’s constitutionality under the relevant level of scrutiny.

The panel relied on:

O Centro Espirita Beneficente v. Gonzales for the proposition that burdens at the preliminary injunction stage track those at trial.
Playboy Entertainment Group and related cases for the rule that government bears the burden to justify its speech restrictions, especially under heightened scrutiny.

This burden‑shifting is consequential: once plaintiffs showed their speech is regulated by the ordinance, Kerrville had to justify each provision with evidence and argument tailored to the applicable constitutional test. Its failure to do so was decisive for the Streets and Permitting Provisions.

V. Facial vs. As‑Applied Challenges and Scope of Relief

A. Conceptual Distinctions

The opinion acknowledges “confusion” in the law over facial and as‑applied challenges but reinforces several settled points in the Fifth Circuit:

Facial challenge: asks whether the law is unconstitutional in a large fraction of its applications, considered in the abstract and as applied to non‑party hypothetical actors. Successful facial challenges typically invalidate the law in its entirety or for a broad class of applications.
As‑applied challenge: asks whether the law is unconstitutional as to the particular plaintiff’s circumstances. A successful as‑applied challenge results in a remedy that protects that plaintiff, but does not automatically nullify the law for everyone.

Citing Moody v. NetChoice, Buchanan v. Alexander, and Serafine v. Branaman, the court reiterated:

Courts should normally decide as‑applied challenges first.
Only if the statute is valid as applied to the plaintiff should the court reach a facial overbreadth inquiry.

The court also noted that the substantive constitutional test (strict or intermediate scrutiny, etc.) does not change merely because the claim is labeled “facial” or “as‑applied”; the difference lies in the breadth of the remedy.

B. Application in This Case

The district court sometimes blurred these categories—confining its reasoning to the plaintiffs’ facts but granting facial relief (a citywide injunction) against the Permitting Provision. The Fifth Circuit cured this by:

reviewing the case under the as‑applied framework,
vacating the overbroad injunction that barred all enforcement of the permitting regime, and
remanding with instructions to tailor the injunction to protect only LIA, Hall, and Vickers.

This portion of the opinion is an important reminder that:

Winning an as‑applied challenge does not necessarily entitle plaintiffs to facial invalidation of the law.
District courts must craft injunctions that are no broader than necessary to remedy the plaintiffs’ own legal injuries.

VI. Merits Analysis by Provision

A. Hours and Signs Provisions: Content-Based Regulation via the “Canvasser” Definition

1. Why These Provisions Are Content-Based

The Hours and Signs Provisions apply to “Canvassing,” defined as uninvited residential contact for the primary purpose of enlisting support for or against:

a religion,
a philosophy,
an ideology,
a political party,
an issue, or
a candidate.

This definition is “blatantly content-based.” Under Reed v. Town of Gilbert, a law is content-based if it applies to particular speech because of the topic discussed or the idea or message expressed. Here:

A person inviting neighbors to a yoga class, promoting a garage sale, or organizing a social club is not a “canvasser” and may knock at any hour, regardless of signage.
But a person discussing religious beliefs or a political candidate is subject to the curfew and cannot approach homes bearing “No Soliciting” signs.

Thus, whether the ordinance applies turns entirely on what is being said. This triggers strict scrutiny.

2. The District Court’s Error and Remand

The district court treated the Hours and Signs Provisions as content-neutral “time, place, and manner” regulations and applied intermediate scrutiny. The Fifth Circuit held this was legal error and remanded for analysis under strict scrutiny, with specific instructions:

Reassess plaintiffs’ substantial likelihood of success under strict scrutiny for their as‑applied challenge.
Reach the facial overbreadth issue (if at all) only if the provisions are found valid as applied to these plaintiffs.
Ensure any injunction is appropriately tailored in scope.

3. Important Clarification for Municipal Drafting

The panel was careful to say it was not holding that municipalities can never limit:

late-night door-knocking (e.g., at 3:00 a.m.), or
entry onto signed property,

as such measures often serve significant privacy and tranquility interests. The constitutional defect here arises from tying the restrictions to subject matter (“religion,” “politics,” etc.) instead of applying them to all door‑to‑door contacts.

The practical lesson is clear: if a city wishes to impose hours limits or respect “No Soliciting” signs, it must draft regulations in content-neutral terms (e.g., applying to all uninvited knocks), not only to religious or political speakers.

B. Streets Provision: Evidence-Free Justification and Lack of Narrow Tailoring

1. Claimed Interest: Traffic Safety vs. Actual Legislative Purpose

The Streets Provision bans soliciting in streets, rights‑of‑way, and medians. At the injunction hearing, the City argued the provision protects pedestrians and drivers from traffic accidents. Such safety can be an important governmental interest.

However, intermediate scrutiny demands more than plausible interests stated by counsel. Under Turner Broadcasting and Virginia v. United States, the government must:

show that the asserted harms are real, not conjectural, and
demonstrate that its justifications are genuine, not post‑hoc rationalizations.

The Fifth Circuit found:

The City admitted there was no evidence of an “actual problem” with road solicitation; when asked, counsel conceded, “The short answer is, no.”
The ordinance’s preamble never mentions traffic safety; instead, it repeatedly references “privacy,” “petty annoyances,” and “unwelcome disturbance.”

By contrast, prior cases upholding roadway solicitation bans—such as International Society for Krishna Consciousness of New Orleans v. City of Baton Rouge and Houston Chronicle Publishing Co. v. City of League City—relied on:

legislative findings that solicitation had already caused accidents, including fatalities, or
specific evidence of accidents or near‑misses at comparable intersections.

Here, no such record existed. The City’s traffic‑safety rationale therefore failed at the threshold step of intermediate scrutiny.

2. Narrow Tailoring After McCullen

The panel then applied the Supreme Court’s demanding narrow‑tailoring framework from McCullen v. Coakley:

The government must show it seriously undertook less speech‑restrictive options and that these alternatives were inadequate.
It must produce actual evidence that the chosen restriction does not burden substantially more speech than necessary.

Key problems for the City under this standard:

No evidence that it considered narrower options (e.g., confining bans to high‑traffic intersections, peak hours, or dangerous medians).
No explanation why existing laws (e.g., traffic, obstruction, or public‑safety ordinances) were inadequate.
No localized safety studies, traffic data, or documented incidents—contrary to the record in cases like Krishna Consciousness and League City.
The ordinance’s blanket ban on solicitation in all streets, rights‑of‑way, and medians, irrespective of traffic patterns or risk levels.

The opinion also distinguished Krishna Consciousness on an important point: that ordinance did not prohibit the distribution of literature in medians, limiting itself to money‑exchange activities deemed hazardous. Kerrville’s ordinance, by contrast, sweeps in the distribution of certain handbills via its expansive definition of “Soliciting,” further burdening speech.

Given this absence of evidence and lack of tailoring, the court held that Hall and LIA have a substantial likelihood of success on their as‑applied challenge to the Streets Provision even if it is treated as content‑neutral.

C. Permitting Provision: Crime and Privacy Interests but No Tailoring

1. Asserted Interests and Genuine Purpose

For the Permitting Provision, the City claimed interests in:

preventing crime and fraud, and
protecting residential privacy and security.

Unlike the Streets Provision, the ordinance’s preamble here corroborated those rationales, explicitly referencing the need to:

“protect against criminal activity, including fraud and burglary,” and
“minimize the unwelcome disturbance of citizens and the disruption of privacy.”

At this early stage, the panel accepted these as genuine and important governmental interests.

2. The Watchtower Problem: Permits for Religious and Political Speech

The constitutional difficulty lay in tailoring. The Supreme Court’s decision in Watchtower Bible & Tract Society v. Village of Stratton is central here:

Watchtower invalidated a permit requirement for door‑to‑door advocacy, especially as it applied to religious and political canvassing.
The Court observed that privacy and crime concerns did not justify a regime that swept so broadly, requiring even religious missionaries to register before knocking on doors.
Critically, the Court suggested in dicta that a permit focused narrowly on commercial solicitation and fundraising might stand on different footing, but it did not actually uphold such a scheme; it only recognized that the government interest in fraud prevention is stronger in the commercial context.

Kerrville tried to rely on that dicta at oral argument, claiming the City attempted to limit the permit to commercial solicitation. But the Fifth Circuit found this argument both procedurally defaulted (not raised in the district court) and factually inaccurate.

The problem lies in the ordinance’s definition of “Soliciting,” which includes:

requests for funds or the sale of goods and services, but also
distribution of handbills or flyers “advertising services for educational, political, charitable, religious, or other purposes.”

That language sweeps in:

religious outreach (inviting people to church services),
political and ideological meetings, and
charitable events,

far beyond commercial or purely monetary solicitations.

Under Watchtower, applying a permit requirement to such speech—especially where criminal history checks and fingerprinting are prerequisites—raises severe tailoring problems, because:

There was no evidence of a special crime wave associated with such advocacy.
Criminals intent on fraud, burglary, or worse are unlikely to be deterred by a permitting requirement.
The annoyance or privacy intrusion from an uninvited knock is the same whether or not the canvasser holds a permit.

3. No Evidence of Narrow Tailoring

The City’s failure was doubly acute:

It presented no evidence at the preliminary‑injunction stage to show why the permit regime (with fingerprinting and background checks) was needed in addition to existing laws.
It did not even present a narrow‑tailoring argument to the district court; it argued only about interests (crime, privacy), not about means.

Because intermediate scrutiny requires the law to be narrowly tailored to the asserted interests—and because Watchtower is highly skeptical of permit requirements imposed on religious and political canvassing—the panel agreed with the district court that plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their as‑applied challenge to the Permitting Provision.

4. Remaining Injunction Factors and Scope

The City did not contest the other preliminary‑injunction factors on appeal. The Fifth Circuit therefore accepted:

Irreparable harm: loss of First Amendment freedoms, even for a short period, is irreparable.
Balance of harms & public interest: the balance and public interest favor protecting speech rights, particularly core political and religious advocacy.

However, because the court treated the challenge as as‑applied, it vacated the district court’s facial, citywide injunction and remanded for tailoring. The new injunction must:

protect LIA, Hall, and Vickers from enforcement of the Permitting Provision in connection with their intended activities,
but need not necessarily bar any and all applications of the permitting regime to other, non‑party actors in other circumstances.

D. The Soliciting Definition: A Cautionary Note

The court expressly declined to decide whether the “Soliciting” definition is content-based, noting:

Recent Supreme Court precedent (City of Austin v. Reagan National Advertising) recognizes that solicitations defined in terms of money or commercial transactions can be content-neutral.
But the added phrase covering “advertising services for educational, political, charitable, religious, or other purposes” strays dangerously close to content‑based targeting of political and religious outreach.

Because the City failed to satisfy even intermediate scrutiny for the Streets and Permitting Provisions, the panel chose judicial minimalism and did not decide whether strict scrutiny also applied. Nonetheless, the opinion telegraphs that cities should use caution when defining “solicitation” so broadly that it reaches religious and political advocacy tied to events or services.

VII. Complex Concepts Simplified

A. Content-Based vs. Content-Neutral Laws

Content-based law: applies because of what you say (e.g., bans speech about politics, religion, or particular topics). These laws face strict scrutiny and are almost always struck down.
Content-neutral law: regulates the time, place, or manner of speech without regard to its content (e.g., no amplified sound after midnight, or no blocking building entrances), and faces intermediate scrutiny.

Here, time and sign‑based restrictions became content-based because they were triggered only when the door‑knocking was about religion, politics, or ideology.

B. Strict vs. Intermediate Scrutiny

Strict scrutiny:
- Government must show a compelling interest (e.g., national security in certain contexts).
- The law must be the least restrictive means available.
- Described by the Supreme Court as the “most demanding test known to constitutional law.”
Intermediate scrutiny:
- Government must show an important or significant interest (e.g., traffic safety, residential privacy).
- The law must be narrowly tailored to that interest and leave open “ample alternative channels” for communication.
- Still demanding: the government must prove with evidence that the law doesn’t restrict more speech than reasonably necessary.

C. Narrow Tailoring

“Narrow tailoring” does not require the perfect least restrictive alternative under intermediate scrutiny, but it does require:

serious consideration of less speech‑restrictive options,
some evidence why those alternatives are inadequate, and
avoiding broad, one‑size‑fits‑all bans when the problem is localized or limited.

In McCullen, the Supreme Court emphasized that intermediate scrutiny still requires robust, fact‑based justification. The Fifth Circuit applied that standard here.

D. Facial vs. As‑Applied Challenges

As‑applied: “Given what I do and how the government is treating me, this law is unconstitutional as to me.” Remedy: the government is enjoined from enforcing the law against the plaintiff in the challenged way.
Facial: “This law is unconstitutional in virtually all its applications, for everyone.” Remedy: the law (or provision) is invalidated or enjoined broadly.

The Fifth Circuit stresses that courts should generally decide as‑applied challenges first, and only then consider facial overbreadth if the law survives as applied.

E. Pre‑Enforcement Standing and “Credible Threat”

To sue before actually being prosecuted, a plaintiff must show:

they intend to engage in protected speech,
their planned speech is arguably covered by the law, and
there is a credible threat of enforcement (not a mere speculative fear).

Evidence of a credible threat can include:

past enforcement against others for similar conduct, or
government officials’ refusal to say “we will not enforce this against you,” especially when the law clearly applies to what the plaintiff intends to do.

VIII. Doctrinal Impact and Future Consequences

A. For Municipalities Regulating Door‑to‑Door Activity

Cities in the Fifth Circuit (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi) will have to carefully reassess:

Definitions of “canvassing” and “solicitation”:
- Do they single out political, religious, or ideological topics?
- Do they sweep in distribution of flyers advertising church services, political meetings, or charitable drives?
Time and place limits:
- Are curfews and “no solicitation” sign regimes drafted content‑neutrally?
- Are they adequately justified and, if challenged, can the city produce evidence (complaints, incident reports, etc.)?
Street and median bans:
- Are bans blanket or tailored to specific high‑risk locations and times?
- Is there evidence of actual or imminent safety risks supporting the restriction?
- Have less restrictive alternatives been considered (e.g., limiting the number of persons, requiring safety vests, limiting solicitations to stopped traffic)?
Permitting regimes:
- Are permit requirements limited to commercial or fundraising activity, or do they also cover religious and political advocacy?
- Are background checks and fingerprinting truly necessary and supported by a factual record?

LIA Network reinforces that ornamental “findings” are not enough. Municipalities must be prepared to defend their ordinances with evidence of actual harms and considered alternatives if challenged.

B. For Advocacy Groups and Litigators

The decision is a favorable one for political, religious, and grassroots organizations:

It confirms that pre‑enforcement as‑applied challenges are proper vehicles for attacking burdensome speech regulations.
It clarifies that a credible threat can be shown by:
- a close fit between plaintiffs’ intended activity and the law’s text, plus
- the government’s refusal to disclaim enforcement.
It emphasizes that at the preliminary‑injunction stage, the government already bears a demanding evidentiary burden when defending speech restrictions, even under intermediate scrutiny.

Strategically, litigators should:

Develop robust factual affidavits detailing intended speech, how it violates the ordinance, and how enforcement would likely unfold.
Press the government, in pleadings and at argument, to state whether it will enforce the statute against plaintiffs, thus clarifying the “credible threat” analysis.
Frame challenges as as‑applied when appropriate, but be explicit about the scope of the requested injunction to avoid remand for overbreadth.

C. For Standing Doctrine in the Fifth Circuit

The case strengthens and refines the Fifth Circuit’s line of standing decisions in Speech First, Braidwood, Umphress, and Barilla by:

explicitly recognizing as‑applied pre‑enforcement challenges,
making the refusal to disavow enforcement a powerful indicator of a credible threat, and
linking the amount of required standing evidence to the clarity of the statute’s application to the plaintiff’s conduct.

Conversely, the denial of standing for the Minor Permitting Provision underscores that:

plaintiffs must either be part of the regulated class or properly invoke third‑party or associational standing doctrines, and
courts will not entertain generalized complaints about how a law affects others who are not before the court, absent a recognized standing bridge.

IX. Conclusion

LIA Network v. City of Kerrville is a substantial Fifth Circuit contribution to modern First Amendment and remedial doctrine. The decision:

labels a definition of “canvasser” that targets religious and political advocacy as facially content‑based, requiring strict scrutiny for associated time and place limits;
reaffirms that even content‑neutral laws must be supported by real-world evidence and serious consideration of alternatives to satisfy intermediate scrutiny, especially following McCullen;
clarifies the availability and contours of as‑applied pre‑enforcement challenges, emphasizing the “credible threat” standard and the significance of a governmental refusal to disavow enforcement;
reinforces the primacy of as‑applied adjudication and limits the scope of preliminary injunctions to the plaintiffs’ own injuries, unless and until a facial challenge is properly decided; and
signals to municipalities that broad, topic‑based restrictions on canvassing and solicitation are constitutionally precarious, particularly where political and religious speech is involved.

Taken together, the opinion advances a rigorous, evidence‑driven approach to speech regulation and a disciplined, plaintiff‑specific approach to injunctive relief. For local governments, it is a warning to draft and justify speech ordinances with care. For advocates and litigators, it is an invitation—and a roadmap—to challenge overbroad or under‑justified restrictions on core expressive activity.