'Department of Tyranny': GOP lawmakers fight Democrats' punishment for representing constituents

Democratic lawmakers in red states have frequently portrayed voter-identification proposals and laws as a threat to their voters and unambiguous disenfranchisement. 

Now they are testing a more direct form of disenfranchisement: legislative speech codes.

Dissenting lawmakers on two coasts are fighting their chambers for the right to represent their constituents without self-censoring, with one filing an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court to restore her privileges in her legislature and the other fighting a "hostile work environment" investigation in his legislature.

Maine Democratic House Speaker Ryan Fecteau has blocked state GOP Rep. Laurel Libby from voting on bills or speaking on legislative matters for two months for posting already public before-and-after photos of a Maine transgender student athlete who won fifth place in male competition two years ago and first place in female competition this year.

The Oregon House twice silenced state GOP Rep. Dwayne Yunker – less than six months into his first elected term, after being appointed to fill a vacancy in 2023 – for reading a sexually explicit passage from a book in a public school library to protest a Democratic bill that would make school- and district-level book bans much harder.

The Legislative Equity Office then launched a probe prompted by unidentified complainants alleging that Yunker's floor speech, and another in opposition to a different bill, constituted a hostile work environment, which could end with reprimand, fine or expulsion.

Yunker told Just the News the investigation is ongoing and that he's yet to be punished, but the LEO has given him few details. 

"All confidential. You don’t get to know your accuser," he wrote in an email. "A report from the outside investigator will come out at some point."

Critic warns it 'punishes voters' and could 'silence any of us'

Louisiana GOP Sen. John Kennedy during a floor speech this spring, in which he spoke about the inherent physiological advantages of males in sports, also cited Libby's social media post on the Maine transgender student-athlete, Katie Spencer, who dominated in girls' pole-vaulting after a middling performance with boys.   

Libby spoke as a witness, not a lawmaker, at a Maine House hearing last week in favor of several bills that she said would ensure Maine women and girls got a fair, safe and level playing field by removing biological males from girls' sports.

Student athlete Zoe Hutchins testified that her "teammates and friends had had their hard work rendered useless by a boy" as a result of the "regressive" actions of Maine leaders. Four female athletes led a march on the state Capitol last week in favor of the female-only bills.

The district court and 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Libby's request for a preliminary injunction against the chamber's party-line censure, finding she was unlikely to prevail on the merits or show irreparable harm from being unable to vote or speak indefinitely.

Libby, who helped get a voter ID measure on the ballot opposed by the Democratic majority and is now protesting the "misleading" language Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows wrote for the measure, got an assist last week from 15 states' GOP attorneys general at SCOTUS.

Led by West Virginia's John McCuskey, the AGs argued that the legislative immunity invoked by Fecteau "cannot become a shield for actions that directly attack the legislative function" and contradict the "centuries-long chorus" of American legislative tradition that "members can’t be unilaterally stripped of voting rights."

Democratic AG Aaron Frey purported to reach back even further, telling SCOTUS in opposition last week that the "power of a legislative body to punish its members has been recognized in the common law since ancient times" and in the U.S. and Maine constitutions.

"It would be a remarkable break from history to permit the continued disenfranchisement of thousands of Americans for their chosen representative’s protected speech," reads Libby's own reply brief. "There can be no do-over for the hundreds of votes taking place in the Maine House, for which District 90 will not be counted."

Though the floor session ended May 6, SCOTUS can "still redress the ongoing irreparable harm compounding with every ensuing floor session," her reply says. Letting her vote "count on some bills is better than none."

Libby also got public support from a critic, Portland civil rights attorney Andrew Schmidt, whose Bangor Daily News op-ed Monday excoriated Libby for "recklessly identifying a transgender teenager online, exposing her to harassment and even physical harm," though his only evidence was that the student's school increased security "as a precaution."

However, Schmidt also argued the House's "response punishes voters, not wrongdoing … undermines representative democracy – and sets a precedent that could one day silence any of us."

Teacher on flagged book: 'no real discernible message to balance out raunch'

Oregon's SB 1098, which will next be considered in the House Education Committee May 19, prohibits officials with authority over school library content from making decisions based on "a perspective, study or story" about, or "created by, any individual or group against whom discrimination is prohibited" under Oregon antidiscrimination law. 

For those "not responsible for the selection or retention of the library materials," the bill would limit removal requests to school employees or students' parents, who must make "formal written request[s]" for removal. School committees or districts would then evaluate requests for compliance with antidiscrimination law and give a "public written explanation" for removal.

Rep. Yunker spoke against the bill in a March 17 floor speech ahead of a hearing on SB 1098, reading from the "young adult novel" The Haters because a school district refused to remove the book from the school library after his constituent read from it at a school board meeting to protest its inclusion. 

The Haters' author acknowledges its "vulgarity and explicit description of sex" is the reason it's been banned in some school libraries, while a 2016 review by a teacher who specializes in YA fiction predicts "it will be approximately five minutes" before most school libraries ban the book because it has "no real discernible message to balance out the raunch."

Unconstitutional 'Department of Tyranny'

Yunker told colleagues he wanted to contrast House rules that forbid "profane and indecent language" on the floor while "it’s OK for children to use profanities in language in public schools because the book is provided to them in the library," the Statesman Journal reported.

Local media were too squeamish to air even a full sentence of Yunker's floor speech from page 265 of the book, a first-person description of an awkward sexual encounter that mentioned breasts, slang terms for genitals and repeated use of the F-word. 

House leaders stopped him for 10 minutes after Democrat-turned-Republican state Rep. Kevin Mannix objected to the "lascivious and obscene" language, according to the Journal. Mannix objected again when Yunker started reading again, and House leaders found he violated decorum, ordering him to stop reading from the book.

Yunker discussed the April 2 letter from LEO, which he calls the "Department of Tyranny," in an X video April 30 shortly before he testified against SB 1098. He shared redacted versions of the letter and his response with Just the News.

The LEO letter cited two complaints that Yunker created a hostile work environment through "unwelcomed and unsolicited" remarks in his "remonstrance" speeches against HB 1098 and HB 3014, which would earmark nearly $5.6 million to put "tampons and sanitary pads" in boys' and girls' school restrooms. Democrats stopped Yunker twice during the latter remonstrance March 27.

The first complainant is "a partisan staff [member]" who is "required to listen to and follow activities on the House floor as part of her job" and was offended when Yunker read the "sexually explicit passage ... and then followed with comments about sexual abuse," the redacted LEO officer wrote.

The second is a "non-partisan staff [member]," also required to listen to House floor speeches for his job, who objected to both Yunker's SB 1098 and HB 3014 comments. The latter objected to "comments about members of the LGBTQ community" by Yunker during the second speech.

Yunker's video said the investigation violates his 1st, 5th and 14th Amendment rights as well as a provision of the Oregon Constitution that shields lawmakers from being "questioned in any other place" for their remarks "in debate in either house." Democrats are silencing him for representing constituents and his "personal biblical beliefs," he said.

His response letter to LEO largely repeats the video's points but hints that he might sue to block Rule 27, which is "vulnerable to constitutional challenge," if used to discipline him.

New York-based Triangle Investigations runs the LEO Rule 27 investigations, according to LEO's website. The process strongly resembles the single-investigator model banned in college sexual misconduct investigations under Title IX regulations from the first Trump administration, which the Biden administration failed to overturn.

The Oregon House Conduct Committee would then host a public hearing on whether Yunker violated Rule 27. A two-thirds vote is required to expel Yunker from office, but he could be reprimanded or fined short of that.