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In a 7-2 ruling Tuesday, the Supreme Court ordered that the Maine legislature count the votes of state GOP Rep Laurel Libby after she was censured.
Per the Associated Press, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. Libby had filed an emergency appeal to the court asking for her votes to be counted while a lawsuit over her censure plays out.
"The application for injunction pending appeal presented to Justice Jackson and by her referred to the Court is granted pending disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and disposition of the petition for a writ of certiorari, if such writ is timely sought. Should the petition for a writ of certiorari be denied, this order shall terminate automatically. In the event the petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, the order shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this Court," the order stated.
Rep. Libby wrote in response to the ruling, "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 was censured in February after posting a photo on social media of a trans-identified male high school athlete who won the girls’ pole vault at the state indoor track and field championships around two weeks after President Donald Trump signed his executive order barring trans-identified males from women’s sports.
Maine House Speaker Ryan Fecteau took issue with the post having a photo of a minor, resulting in the censorship vote. She sued Fecteau in March, with the lawsuit noting that the "championship was a public event, was streamed online, and the names, schools, and photographs of the winners were all posted publicly."
The lawsuit continued, "The complaint that Rep. Libby’s speech somehow threatened child safety is irreconcilable with the fact that her speech addresses what occurred at a public competition with publicly available photos already on the internet. There is nothing illegal or threatening about Rep. Libby’s posts, and at no point has she enabled or encouraged any attacks on any individual student. Instead, she has focused on the state government’s unfair policy and the rights of girls to compete fairly and safely in high school athletics."
Justice Jackson wrote in her dissent that "the applicants have failed to show that there exist 'critical and exigent circumstances' necessitating intervention 'in aid of [our] jurisdictio[n],'" and that "the applicants have not satisfied our normal certiorari factors, such as demonstrating the need to resolve a circuit split."
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