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Our Tax Dollars at Work: Paying for Frivolous Litigation

by: elwood

Sun Aug 17, 2008 at 17:20:50 PM EDT
The Republican Party, nationwide and in New Hampshire, is the Nanny Party. In particular, it believes that government should step between a woman and her doctor on reproductive matters. Every time Republicans take power this is at the top of their agenda.

Most recently, when Craig Benson was Governor and Republicans controlled the New Hampshire House and Senate, they passed a "parental notification" law with no health exceptions. (The law passed in the Senate only because Senate President Tom Eaton refused to vote.) This sort of law had been found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court before, but the Republican Party hoped that they had replaced enough Justices to change the previous rulings...
elwood :: Our Tax Dollars at Work: Paying for Frivolous Litigation
The law was quickly struck down in an appeals court. Once John Lynch was elected Governor he wanted to let that stand. But he inherited Benson appointee Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, who pursued the case. She lost in the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to overturn the lower court ruling but sent the case back to determine whether the law's unconstitutional provisions could somehow be remedied.

Meanwhile the Republicans had lost power in the House and Senate and the law was repealed.

This has taken years. Ayotte and the Attorney General's office has been using its budget to pursue this Republican agenda throughout. (We DID elect them originally - elections have consequences.) Now comes word that New Hampshire taxpayers will also be footing the legal bill for those who challenged the unconstitutional law.

The litigious Republican Party: full employment for lawyers as it tries to implement the Nanny State.
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Our Tax Dollars at Work: Paying for Frivolous Litigation | 4 comments
Thanks, Elwood, for raising this. . . . (4.00 / 1)
Because Craig Benson, a man with the emotional maturity of my 5-year-old niece, is in a perfect position to make reproductive health decisions for New Hampshire's women. (Uh, not so much.)
Frivolous litigation? It was frivolous of the AG to pursue it--nobody should have had to spend money or time on this. (0.00 / 0)
I'm just glad the new legislature put an end to all of this by repealing the law.

--
Hope > Anarch-tea
Twitter: @DougLindner
That's what I meant. (4.00 / 1)
The whole effort was part of a national effort by anti-abortion groups to chip away at Supreme Court rulings. The then-Republican legislature, Benson, and Ayotte pursued that with New Hampshire money. Planned Parenthood didn't initiate this: their role was purely defensive.

But they were put on the defensive by New Hampshire, and we'll pay their costs too.

[ Parent ]
taking a stand... (0.00 / 0)
This issue is why I laughed out loud when Mr. Eaton recently tried to take Sen. Kelly to task (Sentinel LTE 5/15) for not taking a position on whether Keene should build a new middle school or refurbish the existing building.
She actually refused to answer a question about whether she supported the middle school construction project.

Why doesn't she want to let her constituents know her position on the Keene school project?

Why would your elected senator refuse to answer a question about a local issue of such great importance?

All the while with his refusal to take a stand on Parental Notification clear in the minds of all who have paid attention to his record and, after he campaigned on a pledge to not support such a law!

It seems to me that Mr. Eaton's campaign strategy is to hope that voters have a very short memory. Let's hope he is wrong.

Although not a paid staffer, I do volunteer for the Molly Kelly for State Senate Campaign

Hope >> Fear





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