The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the Democrat-led Maine legislature to revoke its censure of Republican state Rep. Laurel Libby for her post about a transgender athlete who won a high school girls’ pole vault competition.
The high court granted the Libby’s emergency application for relief 7-2, with liberal-leaning Justice Sonia Sotomayor saying she would deny the application and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting. The order clears the way for Libby to speak on the state House floor and vote on behalf of her constituents again while her lawsuit against Democrat Speaker of the Maine House Ryan Fecteau plays out in the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
“This is a victory not just for my constituents, but for the Constitution itself. 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,” Libby said in a statement.
“This decision restores the voice of 9,000 Mainers who were wrongly silenced. I am grateful for the Court’s action, and I am ready to get back to work representing the people of House District 90,” she added.
The Democrat-dominated Maine legislature censured Libby in February for daring to speak out against the state’s extreme left-wing support of transgender athletes and posting a picture the teen boy who claimed the victory in the Maine Class B championship for the Greely High School girls’ track and field team.
RELATED ARTICLE: Boy Wins High School Girls’ Pole Vault Competition in Maine After State Pledged to Flout Trump Order
The censure of Libby passed in a 75-70 vote, and she was no longer allowed to speak on the House floor unless she capitulated to the false religion of gender ideology by issuing a formal apology — which she refused to do.
Libby subsequently filed a lawsuit against Fecteau, alleging she was “unconstitutionally stripped a duly elected Republican member of her right to speak and vote on the House floor — disenfranchising the 9,000 Mainers in her district — in retaliation for protected speech on a highly important and hotly debated matter of public concern.”
“The basis of the censure by Fecteau and Maine Democrats was Libby’s post that identified a minor with a photograph and by name. However, Libby and her attorneys argue that the athlete had already been publicized in a positive light and was competing in the public forum of a state-sponsored athletic event,” Fox News Digital noted.
A district court ruled against Libby’s request for a preliminary injunction on April 18, and the First Circuit denied her appeal a week later.
Maine has become the tip of the spear in the effort to defy President Donald Trump’s alteration of federal Title IX rules to ban transgender athletes from playing in girls’ and women’s sports.
President Trump signed an executive order in February called “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports,” which was created to protect female student athletes from having “to compete with or against or having to appear unclothed before males.” The order also mandates each federal department to “review grants to education programs and, where appropriate, rescind funding to programs that fail to comply with the policy established in this order,” which protects women “as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.”
Following Trump’s order, Maine officials publicly said they would not comply, siding with transgender-identifying males over women and girls and citing state law allowing students to play on teams that match their “gender identity.”
The state’s defiance of the order has resulted in several investigations and a subsequent funding and legal battle.
The case is Libby v. Fecteau, No. 24A1051 in the Supreme Court of the United States.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.