Seven Supreme Court Justices ordered an end to this illegal deprivation of representation. Sotomayor and Jackson, of course, dissented.
The Supreme Court restored Representative Laurel Libby's voice in the Maine Statehouse on Tuesday, letting the Republican lawmaker avoid apologizing to a transgender athlete she attacked in a social media post.
Without explanation, the high court granted Libby's emergency appeal in an apparent 7-2 ruling. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
Jackson suggested that her colleagues had acted prematurely, intervening in a case without critical and exigent circumstances.
"Denying emergency relief in a case that does not satisfy the usual certiorari factors also avoids creating perverse incentives to seek our intervention prematurely," Jackson, a Joe Biden appointee, wrote in her solo dissent. "Why would any applicant who thinks the lower courts are mistaken wait for those courts' final word on any issue if real-time error correction via our emergency docket is readily available?"
Libby was censured for a Facebook post complaining that the winner of a high school track meet was transgender, unable to participate in debate or vote under a centuries-old rule of the Maine House. The Legislature said she had to apologize to the transgender athlete to regain her privileges.
Libby turned to the courts instead, asking the justices to intervene so her constituents could have their voice heard in the Legislature.
"The Constitution does not tolerate respondents' unprecedented punishment for Libby's speech on a debated issue of exceptional importance," Libby wrote.
Maine says Libby agreed to the House rules for how the body would govern. According to the statehouse, any member found to be in breach of its rules may not participate in floor debates or votes until they have remedied their breach.
Libby's colleagues said she must apologize for her conduct.