see who Gov. Matt Blunt hired and why

[donsu]

http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=christian_legal_group_represents_missouri


Christian Legal Group Represents Missouri in Abortion Case

Gov. Matt Blunt's office contracted with a Christian organization to defend the state in a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood over newly enacted regulations targeting abortion clinics.
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In a tone befitting a pubescent spat, the director of Missouri's Department of Health and Senior Services last week informed the state Attorney General Jay Nixon that she would not be using his services in a lawsuit filed against the state by Planned Parenthood seeking to have a restrictive abortion law declared unconstitutional. It was a highly unusual move, since the attorney general is the state's lawyer, and it is his job to defend the constitutionality of state statutes when they are challenged in court.
"I did not believe I could trust you to defend me and my department vigorously," wrote Jane Drummond, general counsel to Republican Gov. Matt Blunt (son of the House Republican Whip Roy Blunt). "You," Drummond accused the state's chief law enforcement officer, Nixon, who happens to be the Democrat challenging Blunt in Missouri's gubernatorial race next year, "are radically pro-abortion."

In a final talk-to-the-hand flourish, Drummond demanded, "Please have your counsel contact my department related to this case through my new attorneys."

Those new attorneys are with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), the radically anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-separation-of-church-and-state legal powerhouse at the forefront of just about every real and imagined battle in the culture wars. Remember the "War on Christmas?" Gov. Blunt helped ADF fight it last year, when he sent a memo to directors of state agencies, telling them they shouldn't fear "official reprisal" for saying "Merry Christmas," and reassuring them that "his holiday season should not give state employees reason to feel as though they must check their religious views at the door of a government building." ADF, which is dedicated to "protecting our heritage of prayer," praised Blunt's action, calling him one of "several highly visible public officials also gave the efforts of ADF even greater momentum."

-snip-

Drummond's office, meanwhile, says they are letting her missives to Nixon -- which Holtse says reached the media before they landed on his boss's desk -- "speak for themselves." She sent her latest epistle on Monday, the same day that the court granted the temporary restraining order, and in it upbraided Nixon for his "collaboration" with Planned Parenthood and his allegedly shoddy legal work in the case. Drummond was annoyed, for example, that ADF proffered an expert witness (Elizabeth Shadigan, the University of Michigan School of Medicine professor who is a leading proponent of the debunked theory that abortions cause breast cancer), while Nixon did not. ADF's brief, she added, cited 19 cases, but Nixon's brief was "less thorough."

Drummond went on to boast that ADF is providing "truly pro bono service at its best." Too bad that the taxpayers of Missouri are paying a price anyway, regardless of how the court rules in September.
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Drummond is a religiously insane bully