Supreme Court Restores Maine Legislator’s Voting Rights Pending Outcome of Appeal
Today the Supreme Court granted Maine state representative Laurel Libby’s request for an emergency injunction pending appeal as she seeks to vindicate her rights to speak and vote in the Main legislature. Justices Sotomayor and Jackson would have denied the application.
Rep. Libby opposes the participation of transgender athletes in girls’ sports. She expressed these views in a variety of ways, including on social media. One post in particular, criticizing the decision to allow a transgender athlete to compete in a high school track championship, prompted a vote of censure from the state legislature. The censure resolution demanded that Libby apologize and (as interpreted by Maine Speaker of the House Ryan Feceau) triggered a legislative rule providing that any member found to be “guilty of a breach of any of the rules and orders of the House … may not be allowed to vote or speak, unless by way of excuse for the breach, until the member has made satisfaction.”
Rep. Libby sued, alleging this action is unconstitutional and abridges the rights of her constituents. She also sought an emergency injunction restoring her voting rights, but was denied by both the district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, prompting her application with the Supreme Court. Today’ order restores her voting rights pending the outcome of her appeal.
While no justice authored an opinion explaining the decision to grant the emergency application for an injunction pending appeal, the filing on her behalf makes a fairly powerful case that she should ultimately prevail on the merits (despite the legislature’s attempt to invoke legislative immunity), and that the denial of her vote will cause irreparable harm to her constituents.
Justice Jackson dissented from the grant of the application, echoing prior opinions in which she has lamented the Court’s alleged “watering down” of the Court’s “standards for providing emergency relief.” She also expres
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