Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to deny Representative Laurel Libby’s emergency request to lift her censure.
Frey filed a response Thursday to Libby’s application, saying the Supreme Court was being asked for the first time to intervene in a legislative process protected by immunity.
“Applicants ask this Court, through its emergency docket, to insert itself into
this intra-parliamentary dispute and, for the first time, pierce legislative immunity for core legislative acts,” wrote Frey in the Supreme Court response. “The doctrine of legislative immunity has long safeguarded legislative bodies against federal-court intervention in “fields where legislators traditionally have power to act.”
Libby is seeking an emergency injunction from the U.S. Supreme Court after a federal appeals court denied her emergency appeal to lift a censure.
She was censured by the Maine House after posting a photo of a transgender student athlete on social media.
Libby sued House Speaker Ryan Fecteau last month over her censure, saying the move violated her constitutional rights by blocking her from voting or speaking on the floor.
The lawsuit claims Libby’s First Amendment free speech rights have been violated.
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is overseeing emergency requests from the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where Libby filed her emergency appeal. She could either rule on the application or refer it to the full court.
Justice Jackson had asked for a response to Libby’s request by Thursday, which was fulfilled by Attorney General Frey.
Libby’s lawsuit against Fecteau is currently being heard in a federal district court in Bangor.
Her Supreme Court request is drawing widespread Republican support outside Maine.
Also on Thursday, 15 Republican attorneys general filed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to grant Libby’s request for her censure to be lifted.
“The principle that members can’t be unilaterally stripped of voting rights has been recognized through all of our nation’s existence,” wrote West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey.
McCuskey was joined in the filing by the attorneys general for Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Virginia.
