January 23, 2018 04:01 PM UTC

Cynthia Coffman, Jane Norton Lose Big At Colorado Supremes

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Noting for the record, the brief filed by Jane Norton’s attorneys specifically refer to Cynthia Coffman’s opinion that Planned Parenthood should be defunded:

Based on these facts and circumstances, the Accounting Firm’s audit, and the legal opinion of CDPHE’s then-legal counsel, 3 Petitioner, in her capacity as executive director of CDPHE, determined that State Taxpayer Funds being paid to Planned Parenthood were subsidizing induced abortions performed by Planned Parenthood Services Corporation. Petitioner also determined that such subsidization constituted the use of State Taxpayer Funds to “directly or indirectly” pay for induced abortions in violation of Article V, Section 50. CD, pp. 1-6, 29-30, 229, 237, 307-312.

3 CDPHE’s then-legal counsel was Cynthia S. Honssinger (now Cynthia S. Coffman). Ms. Coffman is the current Attorney General for the State of Colorado. CD, pp. 229, 237, 307-310.

Anybody who wants to take a stab at squaring this on Cynthia Coffman’s behalf, please proceed.
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KDVR reporting, and there’s lots of juicy politics under the hood of this Colorado Supreme Court decision:

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Monday that state payments to Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains for providing nonabortion health care services, such as breast and cervical cancer screenings, are not prohibited by the State Constitution, according to a media release from PPRM…

The Colorado Constitution says the state government cannot use public funds to pay for a patient to receive an abortion.

Former Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Director Jane Norton argued this provision should bar the state from contracting with Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains to provide nonabortion, health care services to Medicaid recipients and others whose care is paid for with public funds.

According to Norton, any payment to Planned Parenthood for any purpose “subsidizes” abortions, the organization said Monday.

But the Supremes were not playing:

The court of appeals concluded that if it were to adopt Norton’s interpretation of ‘directly or indirectly’ to refer to how the funds ultimately are used by the payee, it would lead to an absurd result. [Pols emphasis]

From Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains’ release:

“Today’s victory is a win for over 103,000 patients we care for every year, who trust us to provide them quality health care. This was always just a sideshow from extremists with an agenda,” [Pols emphasis] said Vicki Cowart, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.

This case also puts Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, now a candidate for governor struggling for traction in the Republican primary, in a very tricky position. The case goes back to the last Republican governor of Colorado Bill Owens’ administration, and then-CDPHE director Jane Norton who would go on to run for the U.S. Senate in 2010. Coffman worked for Norton and originally went after Planned Parenthood’s funding–and back when it was less fashionable for Coffman to let anything like a pro-choice lean slip out, she bragged about Norton’s “defunding Planned Parenthood” while stumping for her in the 2010 U.S. Senate primary.

Norton filed this suit as a private citizen after she served in Owens’ administration, but it was based on her interpretation of the law which was wasn’t shared by Owens’ successors Bill Ritter or John Hickenlooper. And the Colorado Supreme Court just called Norton’s reasoning–and by extension, Cynthia Coffman’s–“absurd.”

Wherever you stand on abortion–and for that matter, wherever Cynthia Coffman stands–that’s not a good look.