Health care reform upheld: Thank you, Kelly Ayotte

I suppose we should thank Kelly Ayotte for the small part she played in today’s Supreme Court ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act.

The Court ruled that the overall Act is constitutional — despite finding that one section involving Medicaid expansion isn’t. Justice Ginsburg explained that ruling by citing the decision from a New Hampshire parental notification case that was argued by then-Attorney General Kelly Ayotte. 

When a court confronts an unconstitutional statute, its endeavor must be to conserve, not destroy, the legislation. See, e.g., Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New Eng., 546 U. S. 320, 328–330. Pp. 60–61.

Ayotte brags that she fought Planned Parenthood all the way to the Supreme Court to protect the state’s parental notification law. What she generally doesn’t tell you is that she lost the case and the state had to pay Planned Parenthood’s legal fees as a result.

The state of New Hampshire must reimburse Planned Parenthood of New England for a lawsuit, in which the group challenged the state’s 2003 parental notification law, a federal judge has ruled. In his ruling last week, DeClerico said PPNNE effectively won the suit and deserved to be reimbursed a “reasonable award of legal fees and costs.”

h/t: Kevin Landrigan