Maine Republican censured for transgender athlete comments asks Supreme Court to intervene

A Maine Republican state lawmaker censured by her colleagues for her comments on transgender athletes asked the Supreme Court to allow her to resume voting as her legal challenge proceeds. 

State Rep. Laurel Libby (R) does not challenge the verbal censure itself but instead asks the justices for an emergency injunction blocking Maine House Speaker Ryan Fecteau’s (D) declaration that Libby cannot speak on the floor or vote until she recants her view. 

“This means her thousands of constituents in Maine House District 90 are now without a voice or vote for every bill coming to the House floor for the rest of her elected term, which runs through 2026. They are disenfranchised,” Libby’s attorneys wrote in the application.  

The Democratic-led Maine House voted 75-70 along party lines to censure Libby over a Feb. 17 Facebook post. Libby had posted a transgender high school student’s photos, name and deadname — the name they used before transitioning — without the student’s consent after they won a girls’ track and field championship event in the state.   

Libby and several of her constituents are suing Fecteau and the state house clerk under the 14^th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, claiming the refusal to let her vote violates the Constitution’s demand of equal state legislative representation. 

But a federal judge rejected Libby’s request for an immediate injunction by finding that legislative immunity bars the lawsuit. Libby filed the emergency application at the Supreme Court after the 1^st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied her request for an injunction pending appeal. 

“Respondents here invoke immunity so they can continue to silence debate, disenfranchise a lawfully elected member of the House, and deny equal representation to her constituents,” Libby’s attorneys at law firm Consovoy McCarthy wrote in the application. 

“They would have this Court transform the shield of legislative immunity into a republic-destroying sword.” 

By default, her request will go to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, former President Biden’s sole appointee to the Supreme Court. Jackson automatically handles emergency appeals arising from the 1^st Circuit, but she could also refer the matter to the full court for a vote.