A Maine state legislator posted about trans athletes in women’s sports on her Facebook page — then got banned from speaking or voting on the State House floor.

Now she’s suing the House speaker for violating her First Amendment rights.

“It was a bad move politically for the Democrat majority to censure me for speaking up for Maine girls and their right to a fair, safe, and level playing field, especially because 80% of Americans feel as I do,” Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Minot) told The Post.

It all started on February 17 when Libby, a Republican from Maine’s 64th District,  posted a photo of a Maine high school transgender pole vaulter standing on the first-place step of a state championship podium.

“We’ve learned that just *ONE* year ago John was competing in boy’s pole vault… that’s when he had his 5th place finish,” Libby wrote on her Facebook page. ”Tonight, ‘Katie’ won 1st place in the girls’ Maine State Class B Championship.”

The athlete’s first-place win shot their school’s team to a championship win by a single point.

“I comment about a wide variety of current issues here in Maine, so I did not expect a big issue about it,” Libby said of the post.

“It was a public photo from a public event that an individual chose freely to participate in and step up on a podium during.”

The Democratic House speaker and majority leader in Maine quickly caught wind of the post and demanded she take it down. When she refused, they introduced a motion to censure her, citing the fact that the photographed individual is a minor.

The resolution, which bars her from speaking on the House floor or voting on legislation until she apologizes, passed along partisan lines in a 75-70 vote.

“We’re getting into really dangerous territory, because speech is not free when a simple majority can silence a member of the minority party,” Libby said.

Her lawsuit alleges the Democratic majority violated Libby’s constitutional rights because the Facebook post is protected by the First Amendment. Free-speech attorney Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, agrees.

“Stripping an elected representative of her right to speak and vote for refusing to delete a lawful Facebook post is a blatant violation of free speech and the First Amendment,” Lukianoff told The Post.

“The Constitution doesn’t grant lawmakers the power to muzzle colleagues for making arguments on one of the hottest topics of the day in a way that they don’t like.”

The debacle helped ignite a contentious exchange between Maine Gov. Janet Mills and President Trump over transgender athletes in the White House last week. 

The administration has cut funding to Maine public universities, as the state continues to defy Trump’s executive order to keep trans athletes out of women’s sports, accusing the state of failure to comply with Title IX.

 Meanwhile, Libby says her censure harms the voters who elected her to represent them.

“It’s a silencing of my constituents, and it says your vote doesn’t matter, your voice doesn’t matter, and we don’t think that you deserve representation in the State House,” she said.

She also thinks “100%” the move will cause her colleagues to self-censor for fear of the same retribution.

“If it’s so easy to silence someone who you disagree with on policy, that absolutely shuts down policy debate, because there’s a danger that you can lose your voice and your vote simply by expressing a different opinion,” the lawmaker said.

In a further shock, on Wednesday, all of Maine’s federal judges recused themselves from the case, sending it to the District of Rhode Island. Libby declined to comment about that development.

The defendants have 21 days to respond to Libby’s suit.

As she awaits their response, she worries what Maine girls will make of the Democrats’ move to silence her.

“It’s a terrible message to send to our young women,” she said. “Our female athletes are already having to compete against biological males, and now they’re being told by this censuring action not to even speak up about it — to sit down and shut up, essentially.”

AUGUSTA, Maine — Hospitals and health care providers are feeling pressure after the Legislature once again failed Tuesday night to pass a short-term budget that fills a $118 million MaineCare shortfall.

The State House dysfunction could cost Mount Desert Island Hospital up to $50,000 a week due to the state now delaying and capping payments from its Medicaid program amid lawmakers not yet passing a supplemental budget to immediately fill the funding gap.

“It will erode services,” MDI Hospital CEO Christina Maguire said Wednesday, describing how the hospital that also covers outer islands and parts of Hancock County will struggle to pay bills and hire staff amid budget delays.

Millinocket Regional Hospital CEO Robert Peterson said payment reductions will make it “increasingly difficult to cover our normal expenses in a timely manner” and noted the budget stalemate delays the state in paying his hospital a “large” settlement following an annual audit.

“It is imperative that our rural Maine hospitals remain viable and available to our residents,” Peterson said. “To risk failure of these hospitals due to a state budget shortfall is abhorrent.”

The dire sentiments came after Senate Republicans opposed Tuesday night a short-term budget that otherwise had bipartisan support in the House to fill a $118 million MaineCare gap and give $2 million to fight spruce budworm infestations. Senate President Mattie Daughtry, D-Brunswick, has called her chamber back Thursday to reconsider the plan.

But it was unclear on Wednesday whether anything had changed to resolve the stalemate. Democrats can pass the measure by a simple majority, but it would not go into effect until June without two more votes from Republican senators.

Daughtry, Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart, R-Presque Isle, and House leaders crafted an amendment Monday that would limit General Assistance per recipient to 12 months in a 36-month period, force Gov. Janet Mills’ administration to give direct care workers a 1.95 percent cost-of-living increase lawmakers had previously approved and require a third party to study “waste, fraud and abuse” in MaineCare.

After the House overwhelmingly passed it, all Senate Republicans except for Sens. Rick Bennett of Oxford and Marianne Moore of Calais ended up opposing the short-term budget in a final vote Tuesday night. Stewart said his caucus wanted more changes to rein in MaineCare costs, such as work requirements President Donald Trump could push for at the federal level.

Stewart said he had only agreed Monday to bring the amended plan back to his members before making “very clear” to Daughtry and other Democrats on Tuesday his caucus would not support it unless it had “substantive welfare reform.” But Daughtry said Republicans “flipped” on Mainers and walked away “from a compromise that had been negotiated in good faith.”

“This brinksmanship is senseless and counterproductive,” Mills, a Democrat, said in a Wednesday statement. “Senate Republicans should honor this partisan agreement and pass this bill.”

The lack of a supplemental budget is showing up in this week’s pay cycle for MaineCare providers. The Mills administration said certain payments for critical access hospitals are now capped at 70 percent of their normal levels.

The state is also pausing all hospital claims greater than $50,000, all payments for large retail pharmacies and durable medical equipment providers and all payments for out-of-state providers. Independent pharmacies located in New Hampshire towns within 15 miles of the Maine border will continue to be paid, the Department of Health and Human Services said.

Northern Light Health Eastern Maine Medical Center President Ava Collins noted the system has already been struggling financially in recent months and said a lack of a supplemental budget costs the multi-hospital system about $6 million per month.

Rep. Jack Ducharme, R-Madison, a top appropriator who voted in favor of the short-term plan, said the latest indication on MaineCare funding is the state has enough money to last until the end of April. He acknowledged “a whole lot of fear” for health providers and said he is not sure what the Senate may do Thursday but is hopeful for a deal.

Ducharme added if Republican senators have opportunities to “get something that you want … then you should do that.”

Penobscot Community Health Center CEO Lori Dwyer, who leads Maine’s largest federally qualified health center that serves about 60,000 patients, said they will not see payment reductions until March 26. But Dwyer said PCHC does not yet know how much of a reduction it could see amid 38 percent to 40 percent of its patient revenue coming from MaineCare.

This delay and bigger cuts could force the health center with locations in Penobscot County as well as in Belfast and Jackson to reduce hours or temporarily close clinics, Dwyer added.

“This is a completely manufactured crisis that’s entirely avoidable,” Dwyer said.

BDN writers Marie Weidmayer and Michael Shepherd contributed to this story.

AUGUSTA, Maine (WABI/WMTW) – All of Maine’s active federal judges have recused themselves from a lawsuit made by Republican Representative Laurel Libby.

Just Tuesday, Libby filed a lawsuit against House Speaker Ryan Fecteau after being censured by the legislature roughly two weeks ago.

The party-line censure came after Democrats argued that Libby had overstepped by posting photos of a transgender high school athlete as she criticized the state’s policy of allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls sports.

Our media partner WMTW has confirmed that the Maine Attorney General’s Office will represent Fecteau.

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