State House speaker zings Auburn's Laurel Libby

[TexasTowelie]

Ryan Fecteau said he 'won't tolerate' Laurel Libby's treatment of State House as "a Hollywood set' to raise money for her reelection.


Stripped of her committee assignments after refusing to obey the Legislature’s requirement to wear masks in the State House, first-term Auburn Republican Laurel Libby is using the flap she created this week to raise money for her reelection.

“Help me fight to defend my seat in the House,” Libby says on social media with a link to a fundraising site where she claims Democratic leaders are “going to try to expel” her from her post representing Minot and a portion of Auburn.

The fundraising aspect to Libby’s stunt Monday did not escape House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, a Biddeford Democrat.

Taking note of Libby’s bid for campaign cash on social media, Fecteau posted on his personal Facebook page, “Ooooooohhhhhhhh. I get it now. Treat the State House like a Hollywood set. Capture video of being asked to follow the Legislature’s COVID-19 prevention policy regarding mask wearing. And then act outraged.”

Read more: https://www.sunjournal.com/2021/05/26/state-house-speaker-zings-auburns-laurel-libby/
(Lewiston Sun Journal)



Related article:

Maine House speaker stands ground on COVID mask mandate


AUGUSTA — An ongoing dispute between a group of conservative legislators and Democratic leaders in the Maine Legislature over whether lawmakers should have to wear face coverings when they return to the State House next week was no closer to resolution following a meeting of the Legislative Council on Thursday.

The council, which includes the leaders of both the minority and majority caucuses in the House and the Senate and the speaker of the House and the Senate president – in all, six Democrats and four Republicans – took no additional action on a policy they set last week leaving in effect a mask mandate for lawmakers and the public entering the State House or conducting business there in public areas, including the House and Senate chambers.

House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford, who earlier this week removed seven House members, including six Republicans and one Libertarian, from their committee assignments after they defied the rule and entered the State House without face coverings, said he intends to have orderly proceedings when the Legislature returns to the Capitol on Tuesday for the first time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Maine last year.

“We will not have a House that is not in order,” Fecteau said, referencing a common order of the House speaker, the presiding officer of the chamber. “The House will be in order and we will find a way to make sure that’s the case — that’s the bottom line for me.”

More at https://www.sunjournal.com/2021/05/27/maine-house-speaker-stands-ground-on-covid-mask-mandate/ .