AUGUSTA — The Maine Senate on Thursday defeated a Republican-backed resolution to honor Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist who was assassinated last year.

Democrats, who control the Senate, blocked the resolution in a narrow vote that came after the chamber initially moved to adopt it without a roll call. The resolution, sponsored by Rep. Reagan Paul, R-Winterport, cleared the House last month without a roll call.

But Democratic senators ended up bucking their House peers, defeating the resolution to honor Kirk, the 31-year-old Turning Point USA founder who was an influential and controversial right-wing figure.

Kirk died last September after a 22-year-old man shot him while Kirk was conducting one of his “ask me anything” debates on the Utah Valley University campus in Orem, Utah.

The resolution from Paul and other Republicans lauded Kirk as a “courageous American patriot and faithful Christian.” It condemned political violence and said, among other things, that he “embodied the values of the First Amendment, exercising his right to speak freely, challenge prevailing narratives and stand as a model of conviction with respect for his fellow Americans.”

Critics have pointed to Kirk’s history of remarks they say were xenophobic, racist and homophobic. Kirk had said the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was “a mistake” and advanced the conspiracy theory that Jews were trying to replace white Americans with non-white immigrants — among other controversial comments over the years.

Senate Majority Leader Teresa Pierce, D-Falmouth, moved to reconsider the adoption of the resolution Thursday before Assistant Senate Majority Leader Jill Duson, D-Portland, moved to defeat, or “indefinitely postpone,” it.

That brought criticism from a few Republican senators.

Assistant Senate Minority Leader Matt Harrington, R-Sanford, noted after the vote that the Legislature had previously passed a resolution in 2021 to mark the one-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd, a Black man whom a white police officer in Minneapolis murdered, sparking protests around the country.

Harrington cast Floyd as a “well-known criminal” in a hallway interview.