The Boston Tea Party was famously about taxation by the governing authorities without representation in that government. That act of defiance perpetrated by those firebrands was a pivotal event that led to the American Revolution. Two hundred and forty-eight years later, we’re still cranky about getting taxed by a government that doesn’t give us a voice.

Recently, the voters represented by Rep. Laurel Libby were without a voice for approximately three months.

Unless people are living under a rock, they know Rep. Libby’s story. She posted information on a student-athlete and was punished by the state legislature for doing so. They wanted her to apologize. She declined to do so. It was an impasse until the Supreme Court told the state Legislature they couldn’t do that.

Without taking sides one way or the other, what that meant for the people in Libby’s district is that they did not have a voice in the state government for approximately 90 days. That’s a quarter of the year they were being taxed without representation.

This is America. Shoot, this is New England. Those who punished Libby by silencing her should understand this basic fact: We’d better have representation before you tax us.

What I’m proposing is that these citizens, who were denied a voice in their governance — by the state of Maine — have their state taxes prorated for the time the state prohibited Libby from representing her constituents.

Seems fair to me. Just sayin’.

Marsha Hinton
Lewiston