AUGUSTA, Maine — Democrats who control the Maine House of Representatives were preparing Tuesday to censure a Republican lawmaker over her online posts that singled out a student and led to President Donald Trump threatening to ax Maine’s federal funding if it continues to allow transgender students to compete in girls’ sports.
The effort to censure Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, came after she made social media posts that have since gone viral about a transgender student at Greely High School who won an indoor track and field title last week. Word made it to Trump, who mentioned Maine during a speech and then sparred Friday with Gov. Janet Mills during a White House event with other governors.
The Libby censure was posted on the Legislature’s website Tuesday evening, just before the House was set to reconvene to vote on it. Around that time, Libby told a reporter outside the chamber she had been summoned to the office of House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford, but she declined to say what they discussed.
The censure faults Libby for picturing and identifying the student “in an effort to advance her political agenda” and calls on her to apologize to the House and the people of Maine.
Her post prompted Trump’s threat to no longer give federal funding to the state if it keeps a Maine Principals’ Association policy allowing transgender students to compete in scholastic sports. Trump bashed Mills and said “we are the federal law,” while the Democratic governor told the president “we’ll see you in court.”
Trump issued an executive order earlier in February that seeks to bar transgender female athletes from competing by arguing that it violates the landmark Title IX law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in education programs that receive federal funding.
The Trump administration said later Friday it will conduct a Title IX investigation into Maine’s education department and the Cumberland school district attended by the student Libby singled out in her initial Facebook post that has since been shared more than 18,000 times.
Libby first won election to the House in 2020 and has been a prolific fundraiser while clashing at times with other Republican leaders. Though several GOP officials have said they oppose targeting a child in the heated debate, Libby has not backed down from her social media posts on the student, whose school had increased security Monday.
A coalition of Maine public health and LGBTQ+ advocacy groups released a statement Tuesday that did not name Libby but criticized her for her posts “resulting in statewide and national harassment of a non-consenting minor.”
House Democrats, who have a narrow 75-73 majority, also approved last month an ethics probe into a Sanford Republican who was charged with allegedly strangling his romantic partner. Fecteau also removed Rep. Lucas Lanigan from the labor committee. Lanigan has denied the accusations in his pending criminal case. Fecteau also stripped Rep. Randall Hall, R-Wilton, of his committee assignment this week after a grand jury indicted Hall in a signature forgery case.
