- Maine Rep. Laurel Libby was censured for posting photos of a transgender athlete who won a girl's track event and has filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court.
- The censure prevents Libby from voting or speaking on the House floor until she apologizes, which she refuses to do, claiming she's being punished for highlighting issues of transgender athletes in girl's sports.
- The case has divided lawmakers along party lines, with Republicans decrying the censure as unconstitutional and Democrats arguing it's necessary accountability for violating a minor's privacy.
On Feb. 25, Maine Democratic lawmakers in the state House voted to censure Republican state Rep. Laurel Libby for posting two photos of a transgender high school student after the student won the Class B girls’ state championship in pole vaulting.
Libby’s censure, approved in a party line 75-70 vote, revokes her ability to vote or speak on the state House floor until she accepts “full responsibility for the incident and publicly apologize(s) to the House and to the people of the State of Maine.”
Libby asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene on her behalf.
The censure is one more example of the ongoing battle between the federal government and Maine over transgender athletes participation in girls’ sports.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi referenced the transgender student Libby had posted about in a news conference in mid-April, saying, “Maine’s leadership has refused to comply at every turn, so now we have no other choice. We are taking them to court.”
She added that her office is also considering whether to “retroactively pull all the funding that they have received for not complying in the past.”
Maine says it will continue to censure until Libby apologizes
In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Libby described the lead-up to being censured.
Maine House Speaker Ryan Fecteau emailed and called Libby on Feb. 18, asking her to take the post down.
“In addition to risking the young person’s safety, your post violates one of the long held political traditions of ‘leaving kids out of it,’” Fecteau wrote in his letter to Libby.
Libby responded to the accusations on Fox News, saying lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have posted photos of minors, “many, many, many times, including Speaker Fecteau,” but “because it highlighted a policy that they did not want Maine people to really see, that was the real reason behind it.”
The “real reason” Libby believes she was censured is that she drew attention to “a policy that most Mainers do not agree with — biological males in girls’ sports."
During their phone call on Feb. 18, Libby said she asked Fecteau if he would “support policy that stops discrimination against Maine young women in sports,” and the House speaker did not answer.
Libby has maintained that she will not apologize for the post.
Libby’s lawsuit against Speaker Fecteau travels up the ranks
On March 11, Libby filed a lawsuit against Fecteau with Melissa DuBose from the Rhode Island U.S. District Court, since every district judge in Maine refused to take it.
DuBose ruled in favor of Fecteau, as did the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals.
On Monday, Libby announced on X that she had filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court, claiming her constituents “must not be deprived of their constitutionally guaranteed representation.”
The Supreme Court will likely confirm if they will hear the case by Monday, May 5.
The lawsuit quotes dissenting House representatives, who criticized Fecteau’s resolution as “a mockery of the censure process” that “set(s) a standard ... that the majority party, when they’re displeased with a social media post that upsets them, can censure a member of the minority party.”
Other congressmen weigh in on the censure
Responding to an X post with screenshots from the lawsuit attached, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, wrote, “Maine has fallen. This is pure lawlessness.”
Similarly, former Alabama state Sen. Phil Williams called Libby’s censure “the most galling, unconstitutional thing I have ever heard of,” per his post on X in February.
On the other hand, fellow Maine state Rep. Tiffany Roberts, D-South Berwick, told the Maine Morning Star it would “send a dangerous message that decorum is optional, that accountability is negotiable and that consequences for our actions can be erased with a simple procedural vote,” if the House ended the censure.
Rep. Daniel Sayre, D-Kennebunk, agreed with Roberts that the censure should not be undone.
“I wish that a member of this body had not violated the privacy of a minor, but one has,” he said. “I wish this violation had not touched off a vast outpouring of hateful threats, but it has. I wish these threats had not created real harm to a child, their family, their school and their community, but it has.”
Meanwhile, Libby has been vocal online that she “will not be silenced” by the censure, even if she cannot vote or speak on the floor.