The U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily restored Rep. Laurel Libby's ability to vote while she appeals a censure order for identifying a high school transgender athlete in a critical social media post.
Libby was censured in February by Democrats in the Maine House for a social media post that sparked the state's ongoing conflict with the Trump administration over transgender athletes participating in girls sports. The censure prohibited Libby from voting or debating until she apologized.
Libby sued House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, saying the censure violated her First Amendment rights and left voters in her district without representation.
While the Republican lawmaker was on the losing end of two preliminary rulings by a federal judge and an appellate court, the Supreme Court granted her request for immediate relief by a vote of 7-2.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. Jackson argued that Libby's application didn't meet the standard for the high court's intervention.
The majority did not explain its ruling, which is typical of decisions made on the court's emergency docket, also known as the shadow docket. Jackson, in her dissent, lamented the increased use of the shadow docket to circumvent lower court rulings.
"Not very long ago, this Court treaded carefully with respect to exercising its equitable power to issue injunctive relief at the request of a party claiming an emergency," Jackson wrote, adding, "Those days are no more. Today’s Court barely pauses to acknowledge these important threshold limitations on the exercise of its own authority. It opts instead to dole out error correction as it sees fit, regardless of the lack of any exigency and even when the applicants’ claims raise significant legal issues that warrant thorough evaluation by the lower courts that are dutifully considering them."
Libby's lawsuit will continue to play out in the lower court. In a statement, she described the ruling as a win for her constituents and the Constitution.
"The Supreme Court has affirmed what should never have been in question — that no state legislature has the power to silence an elected official simply for speaking truthfully about issues that matter," she said.
A federal judge and an appellate court issued preliminary rulings against Libby's claims, saying that Fecteau was acting within the bounds of legislative immunity.
In legal filings, Attorney General Frey, who is representing Fecteau, says that the censure order doesn't punish Libby for her views, but that her targeting of a high school student violates the legislature's code of conduct.
In a separate brief, 14 Republican attorneys general backed Libby's claim that the censure violates her rights.
Libby's post identified the transgender athlete but blurred the faces of two other girls to protect their identities. It was amplified by conservative media in the days before President Donald Trump confronted Gov. Janet Mills on Feb. 21 at the White House, telling her to comply with his executive order banning transgender athletes from competing on girls' sports teams or lose federal funding.
The Trump administration then launched a pressure campaign against the state, freezing several federal grants. It eventually sued the state in a case that will be heard by a federal court later this year.
