WASHINGTON (CN) - The Supreme Court restored Representative Laurel Libby's voice in the Maine Statehouse on Tuesday, letting the Republican lawmaker avoid apologizing to a transgender athlete she attacked in a social media post.
Without explanation, the high court granted Libby's emergency appeal in an apparent 7-2 ruling. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
Jackson suggested that her colleagues had acted prematurely, intervening in a case without critical and exigent circumstances.
"Denying emergency relief in a case that does not satisfy the usual certiorari factors also avoids creating perverse incentives to seek our intervention prematurely," Jackson, a Joe Biden appointee, wrote in her solo dissent. "Why would any applicant who thinks the lower courts are mistaken wait for those courts' final word on any issue if real-time error correction via our emergency docket is readily available?"
Libby was censured for a Facebook post complaining that the winner of a high school track meet was transgender, unable to participate in debate or vote under a centuries-old rule of the Maine House. The Legislature said she had to apologize to the transgender athlete to regain her privileges.
Libby turned to the courts instead, asking the justices to intervene so her constituents could have their voice heard in the Legislature.
"The Constitution does not tolerate respondents' unprecedented punishment for Libby's speech on a debated issue of exceptional importance," Libby wrote.
Maine says Libby agreed to the House rules for how the body would govern. According to the statehouse, any member found to be in breach of its rules may not participate in floor debates or votes until they have remedied their breach.
Libby's colleagues said she must apologize for her conduct. The state clarified that it was not asking Libby to recant her views, however.
"Rep. Libby has steadfastly refused to comply with this modest punishment, which is designed to restore the integrity and reputation of the body," Kimberly Leehaug Patwardhan, Maine's assistant attorney general, wrote.
Maine's Democrat-controlled statehouse censured Libby for endangering the student to advance her political agenda. Lawmakers noted Libby blurred the faces of other athletes to protect their privacy, but intentionally exposed the transgender student.
Commenters on Libby's post threatened the minor with violence, forcing the school to increase security. The statehouse found that Libby violated their code of ethics and called for a public apology to the people of Maine.
Libby claimed that the statehouse was violating her First Amendment rights.
"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 wrote.
Maine said Libby's injury was self-inflicted, noting that forcing the tally of her votes would put the clerk of the Maine House in direct violation of the rules.
"The power of a legislative body to punish its members has been recognized in the common law since ancient times and has been enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and many state constitutions, including Maine's, since the birth of our republic," Patwardhan wrote.
After the viral post, President Donald Trump got in a public dispute with Democratic Maine Governor Janet Mills. Libby then featured in U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi's press conference announcing a lawsuit against the state.
Source: Courthouse News Service
