The 7-2 order allows state Rep. Laurel Libby to resume her duties while an appeal proceeds.
The U.S. Supreme Court on May 20 reinstated a Maine state lawmaker’s speaking and voting privileges that had been suspended over her criticism of males participating in girls’ high school sports.
In March, the speaker of the Maine House of Representatives barred Maine Rep. Laurel Libby, a Republican, from speaking or voting on the House floor until she recanted her views on Maine’s policy allowing transgender participation in school sports.
On May 20, the Supreme Court granted Libby’s request for an injunction blocking the House policy as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit considers the case. The unsigned order did not provide reasons for the decision.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor indicated she would deny the application. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson filed a dissent from the granting of the application.
A federal district court previously denied Libby’s application for a preliminary injunction, finding legislative immunity prevented the court from acting because the speaker’s “sanction” was a “legislative act” and the disenfranchisement of the voters in Libby’s legislative district was not so “extraordinary” as to override immunity.
Libby appealed to the First Circuit, which also declined to block the House policy.
In her April 28 application to the Supreme Court, Libby challenged the speaker’s decision to suspend her privileges as a lawmaker.
“The verbal censure (unwise as it may be) is not what Applicants challenge here. It’s what happened next.
“The Speaker declared Libby was barred from speaking or voting 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.
“The ongoing and indefinite denial of Libby’s voting rights is unprecedented,” the application said, adding that the U.S. House of Representatives found long ago that the Constitution forbids that chamber from preventing one of its members from voting.
“The member’s vote is not her own; it belongs to her district. And depriving an entire district of representation is no more constitutional than excluding that district from a redistricting plan in the first place. … The same rules apply in Maine.”
On May 8, Maine’s House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, a Democrat, filed a brief urging the Supreme Court not to take up the case.
