In preparing the transparency amendment above, my staff and I learned that some legislators were advocating giving $805,883 to Planned Parenthood for their part in suing the state in the case Planned Parenthood v. Streur. This was the taxpayer funding for abortion case in which the Chief Justice of the Alaska Supreme Court declared, “I believe the court today fails to give respect to the legislature’s proper role but instead substitutes its judgment for that of the legislature.”
The Alaska Constitution gives the legislature full authority to limit taxpayer funding for abortion. Perhaps more importantly, a majority of Alaskans are opposed to tax dollars being used to fund abortions in Alaska. Faced with a public, a legislature, a governor, and state law opposed to paying Planned Parenthood for elective abortions, Planned Parenthood sought help from its political allies on the Alaska Supreme Court, four of whom responded with a court opinion supplanting the legislature’s authority on the taxpayer funding of abortion.
These four justices directed legislators and future governors to ignore state law, and to fund abortion with taxpayer dollars anyway. They then had the further audacity to direct that legislators pay Planned Parenthood’s legal fees for seeking to prevent the legislature from exercising its appropriating authority under the Alaska Constitution.
Amendment #2 to the supplemental sought to remove the $805,883 earmarked for Planned Parenthood. Unfortunately, Republicans joined Planned Parenthood’s many allies in the legislature and voted against the amendment.
