A Maine legislator stripped of her voting rights after a controversial social media post must be allowed to vote and speak again, following a Supreme Court decision on Monday. The legislator, Rep. Laurel Libby (R–Auburn), had filed an application for an emergency injunction last month.
In February, Libby came under fire for a post on Facebook and X criticizing the state's decision to allow a transgender girl, who had previously competed as a boy, to participate in a high school girls' track championship. The student—whose face was shown in the post while other female athletes' faces were blurred—had won the girls' pole vault event.
Soon after, Libby was censured by the Maine Legislature. When Libby refused to apologize for the post, the speaker of the Maine House, Ryan Fecteau (D–Biddeford), found her in violation of a House rule that strips voting and speaking rights to any member who "is guilty of a breach of any of the rules and orders of the House…until the member has made satisfaction."
For months, Libby had not been allowed to speak, and her votes were not counted. Despite filing legal challenges to her disenfranchisement, Libby faced initial defeats from both the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit and a lower federal court. In legal filings, Maine government officials argued that their actions against Libby were protected by Maine's absolute legislative immunity protections. However, it's unlikely that such an excuse allows them to deny Libby her right to speak and vote as a legislator over disfavored speech.
"The core of legislative immunity is to shield lawmakers for what they say or how they vote during legislative debate and processes. That makes sense, as we want to promote free and open debate in our Houses and Senates," J.T. Morris, an attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a First Amendment group, told Reason earlier this month. "But it's hard to reconcile immunizing lawmakers who engage in free and open debate, and immunizing these Maine lawmakers who are punishing Representative Libby for her speech by stripping her ability to participate in legislative debate and voting."
On Monday, the Supreme Court granted Libby's emergency application. Like in most such decisions, the court did not provide an explanation as to why they granted Libby's request for an injunction. However, Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that she would have denied the application, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a dissent, which focused primarily on her view that Libby's situation was not a true emergency.
"The First Circuit is moving quickly to evaluate the legal issues this case presents, with oral argument scheduled to occur in a few weeks. Meanwhile, before us, the applicants have not asserted that there are any significant legislative votes scheduled in the upcoming weeks," Jackson wrote. "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….Those days are no more."
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