The Maine House of Representatives voted to censure Rep. Laurel Libby Tuesday night for a recent social media post pointing out that a transgender high school athlete won a girls’ competition.
The Maine House’s Democratic majority, led by Speaker Ryan Fecteau, passed the censure resolution Tuesday night in a 75-70 vote. Libby is now no longer allowed to speak on the house floor or vote until she issues an apology.
Libby told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview after the vote that she does not plan to apologize for her recent post.
After the censure had been determined, Fecteau told Libby that the House members would take a break while Libby considered her apology.
“I told him, ‘We do not need to take ease’ as I was going to continue speaking up for Maine girls,” Libby said.
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Libby’s post came last Sunday when she pointed out that a transgender track and field athlete had taken first place at a Maine girls’ pole vault competition after competing as a boy just one year earlier. The premise of Libby’s censure by the Maine House was focused on the fact that she posted a photo of a minor and provided that minor’s name.
“It’s a remarkable double standard as there are public photos of this individual in many places, on social media and even some posted by his school, and so yes, this post went viral, but this was an individual who participated in a public event, who publicly stood on a podium and accepted a championship medal that rightfully belonged to the girls standing on the second-place spot,” Libby said.
House Majority Leader Matt Moonen condemned Libby in a statement on the House floor.
“She has irreparably broken the trust that has been placed in her as an elected official serving in this House of Representatives,” Moonen said. “This institution and all of Maine deserve better.”
House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham spoke out against the censure, pointing out that the state legislature’s ethics code does not mention online posts that members make.
During Tuesday’s vote, Libby came to the house floor with a prepared seven-page speech on the importance of protecting girls’ and women’s sports from trans inclusion. However, throughout the night, her microphone was consistently turned off when she was trying to deliver that speech.
“I was completely unable, from my first sentence, to get a word out, before the other side was shutting me down,” Libby said, adding that she had never seen anything like that happen during her tenure in the Maine legislature.
Libby later posted a video of her giving the speech on Facebook after the hearing.
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Libby says that while she doesn’t plan to apologize, she does have another course of action she plans on taking to regain her voting and speaking privileges, but did not disclose any details of that plan.
Maine Republicans and Libby’s constituents will now lose a vote and a voice for other issues in the state’s legislative process amid a busy month.
Libby recently proposed a bill to expand access to mental health resources for Maine residents, which she will now not be able to help push through. In the coming weeks, the Maine House will vote on the upcoming biannual budget, and Libby will not get to vote on that either.
“It’s look like I will not be able to speak on that or vote on that,” she said.
Libby’s revelation of the trans athlete ignited national conversation and coverage of the state’s policy on trans inclusion after Maine announced it would not comply with President Donald Trump’s recent “No Men in Women’s Sports” executive order.
Trump then vowed to cut funding to the state for refusing to follow his order during a gathering of governors at the White House last Thursday.
On Friday, Mills’ office responded with a statement threatening legal action against the Trump administration if it did withhold federal funding from the state. Then, Trump and Mills verbally sparred in a widely-publicized argument at the White House during a bipartisan meeting of governors.
Just hours after that interaction, the U.S. Department of Education announced it will be investigating the state for allowing trans athletes to compete in girls sports and potential Title IX violations.
Police protection has since been assigned to the high school that is attended by the trans athlete who Libby identified in her Facebook post, amid concerns over safety.
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A recent New York Times/Ipsos survey found the vast majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, don’t think transgender athletes should be permitted to compete in women’s sports.
Of the 2,128 people who participated, 79% said biological males who identify as women should not be allowed to participate in women’s sports. Of the 1,025 people who identified as Democrats or leaning Democrat, 67% said transgender athletes should not be allowed to compete with women.
For Libby, she has her own hypothesis about why Democrat lawmakers in her state, and many across the country, are fighting so hard to protect trans inclusion in girls’ sports, despite most Americans, and even most Democrats, being opposed to it.
“I think Maine Democrats’ stance is, they haven’t gone hard enough, and they need to dig in,” Libby said.
But she expects that Democrats fighting for their current stance, and censuring her Tuesday night, will backfire on them moving forward.
“I think this was a tremendous misstep on the part of the Democrats, and they are completely misjudging this issue, and they do not understand how vigorously Maine people disagree with them on this policy, and they will at some point regret this action from tonight,” she said.
Libby added that she believes her Republican colleagues have her back as she fights the censure.
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