The Supreme Court restored Republican Maine State Rep. Laurel Libby’s ability to vote in the legislature on Tuesday after she was censured for a social media post opposing “transgender athletes” in women’s sports.
Libby asked the Supreme Court to intervene in April, alleging Democrat House Speaker Ryan Fecteau barred her 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,” Libby’s emergency petition said. “They are disenfranchised. Libby and her district had no vote on the State’s $11 billion budget, had no vote on a proposed constitutional amendment, and will have no vote on hundreds more proposed laws including—most ironically—whether Maine should change its current policy of requiring girls to compete alongside transgender athletes.”
Libby called the decision “a victory not just for my constituents, but for the Constitution itself.”
“The U.S. Supreme Court just restored the voice of 9,000 Mainers!” she wrote on X. “After 2+ months of being silenced for speaking up for Maine girls, I can once again vote on behalf of the people of House District 90. This is a win for free speech — and for the Constitution.”
VICTORY!
The U.S. Supreme Court just restored the voice of 9,000 Mainers!
After 2+ months of being silenced for speaking up for Maine girls, I can once again vote on behalf of the people of House District 90.
This is a win for free speech — and for the Constitution.
— Rep. Laurel Libby (@laurel_libby) May 20, 2025
VICTORY!
Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor would have denied Libby’s request, according to the order.
“Whether the House’s censure and resulting sanction violate Libby’s constitutional rights, or those of her constituents, raises many difficult questions,” Jackson wrote in a dissenting opinion. “What are the limits on a state legislature’s ability to bind its members to ethics rules? Do federal courts have the authority to determine that those rules are improper?”
Jackson wrote that the court barely “pauses to acknowledge these important threshold limitations on the exercise of its own authority.”
The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a brief backing Libby’s application on Friday.
“We need more brave lawmakers like Rep. Libby standing up for young women!” Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon wrote on X after the decision.
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