Introduction
On February 25, Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn) became the fourth legislator to be censured in Maine state history. Legislatures typically use censure to express disapproval of the actions of an individual legislator. Many legislatures consider censure to be a very low-level punishment, often compared to a simple reprimand.
However, Rep. Libby’s case is different, as her censure removed her ability to vote or speak on the floor of the Maine House of Representatives. Unlike many other states which require a legislator to stand at attention as the speaker’s condemnation is read to them, Maine specifically suspends all ability to act on the House floor until the legislator in question apologizes to the Legislature and Maine. Rep. Libby is the first legislator in Maine history to refuse to do that. Since the Maine House of Representatives has refused to retract her censure, now turned censorship, she has sued Speaker Ryan Fecteau (D-Biddeford) and the Clerk of the House, Robert Hunt, in federal court for violating several provisions of the U.S. Constitution.
This is the first of five blog posts MPI will be doing in a series discussing the lawsuit’s specifics and how each factor impacts the lawsuit. This post, in particular, will address the background of censures in Maine and nationally, and what specific conduct led to the unwise censureship of Rep. Libby.
As many may know by now, Rep. Libby was censured for making a Facebook post that identified a trans athlete who had switched within a year from the boys’ pole vault team to the girls’. It should be noted that while her post did include a picture of the athlete and their first name, it did not include their last name or any information that was not already available in local newspapers discussing the track event.
This post caused widespread backlash online and led to President Trump confronting Gov. Janet Mills at a national governor’s event. Within days of entering office, Trump signed an executive order that confirmed his administration’s interpretation of Title IX, which requires disallowing biological males from competing in women’s sports. He disapproved of Maine’s refusal to comply with his Title IX interpretation.
Speaker Fecteau’s Retaliation
After Rep. Libby’s Facebook post, Speaker Fecteau asked Rep. Libby to remove the post. After she refused, the House censured her, which, according to Maine House rules, removed her ability to speak or vote on the floor until she publicly apologized. She has not yet done so and has expressed no intention to, meaning that the House has indefinitely removed her ability to vote or speak.
Speaker Fecteau has defended this decision by pointing out that this rule to temporarily remove censured members’ voting and speaking powers has existed since the state’s first House rules were written in 1820. However, considering the context of the censure rule makes this maneuver more questionable.
The Context of Censures
First, while this censure rule appears to have been on the books for the entirety of Maine’s history, it has only been used three other times and was never used before 2001. In that session, Rep. John Micheal of Auburn was censured for “berating” and allegedly shouting at state Senators in the halls of the State House, even following them into their offices. The only other time legislators had been censured was in 2024, when Rep. Micheal Lemelin blamed a recent abortion law as the cause of the tragic Lewiston shooting, while Rep. Shelley Rudnicki was censured for publicly agreeing with him. Both of their statements happened on the floor of the Maine House.
There are notable differences between these censures and Rep. Libby’s. One is that her censure is the first one ever to be in response to conduct that was not directed at other legislators. It’s also the first one ever for conduct that did not occur inside of the State House. Additionally, her censureship did not result in a near-immediate apology, meaning no other censure resulted in a similarly extended denial of speech or voting rights.
Also of note is that a censure has never been applied to a Democratic lawmaker. The only non-Republican to ever be censured was the 2001 target, Rep. Michael, an independent. This coincidentally also means that half of all censures ever to occur in the Maine Legislature have targeted representatives from Auburn.
Unclear Standards
Another concern with this censure is the vagueness of the standards being applied. Speaker Fecteau has stated that “sharing images of kids online without their consent is a clear violation of the bond of trust and respect between citizens and their Legislators.” However, as Rep. Libby’s counsel points out in her lawsuit, Speaker Fecteau is guilty of the exact conduct he has condemned.
If the line is so clear, then we should be able to tell what conduct does and doesn’t violate the rules being broken. However, the only apparent difference between Fecteau’s and Libby’s is that her posts advocated for political stances with which he and his party disagree.
Another issue of confusion is why other legislators aren’t being censured. Other Republicans in the Maine House shared Rep. Libby’s post, but Speaker Fecteau has confirmed only her censure was considered. However, during the 2024 session, Rep. Rudnicki was censured for simply agreeing with censure-worthy statements on the floor of the House of Representatives from Rep. Michael Lemelin. Her conduct was arguably the in-person equivalent of sharing a Facebook post. Meanwhile, Fecteau never attempted to censure other Republicans who shared the same post for which Rep. Libby was censured.
Lastly, while Speaker Fecteau appealed to preserving the long-standing, in this case illogical, traditions of Maine, the fact is that many legislatures have no such rule in place that requires censured members to apologize or be stripped of their ability to represent their constituents. In the U.S. Congress, a censureship is simply an admonishment of a member with no immediate consequences. Additionally, state legislatures commonly take a censure as merely a formal statement of disapproval. Even Maine’s own Legislator’s Handbook defines a censure as a “formal statement of disapproval made by the Legislature against one of its members.” It says nothing about losing your ability to vote or speak on the floor if you do not apologize.
The full implications of the ethics rule, removing voting and speaking ability, conflict with the ordinary meaning of a censure. Some of the Democrats in the Maine House may not have even realized at the time they were voting to take away Rep. Libby’s right to speak or vote on the floor if she did not apologize since this language is absent from the Legislator’s Handbook.
Baseless Privacy Claims
Speaker Fecteau has last of all made an appeal to the privacy and safety of the athlete, claiming that by silencing Rep. Libby, he is standing “up to elected officials who violate the privacy of youth for cheap political stunts.” This is really the most baseless argument of all since sharing already public, entirely true information is not a violation of anyone’s privacy rights.
Warren and Brandeis’ landmark 1890 Harvard law review article The Right to Privacy defined privacy rights as protection against intrusion upon seclusion (such as wiretapping), public disclosure of private facts, painting someone in a false light, and appropriation of likeness. None of these things happened here. All of these issues were already public, completely removing the first two issues from debate. Nothing in Rep. Libby’s post was untrue, removing the possibility of a false light claim. Lastly, she never attempted to steal anyone’s identity in this chain of events, making her conduct come nowhere near what is recognized as the right to privacy in America.
Conclusion
In summary, tensions in the Maine House of Representatives are exceptionally high, especially any activity revolving around Rep. Libby or Speaker Fecteau. There likely will not be any resolution to this conflict soon due to Fecteau’s unlikely backing down and admitting to a wrongful and politically-motivated censure, as well as Rep. Libby’s view that issuing an apology would equate to her abandoning an issue of significant importance to women in her district and across Maine.
Now that I have established the backdrop that led up to Rep. Laurel Libby’s lawsuit, Part 2 will go in-depth on her alleged injuries. I will also address how they relate to Maine and federal constitutional law and my view on each one’s likeness to succeed in court.