AG adds new twist to family-planning suit

In another twist in the long-running litigation over the issue of your tax money going to Planned Parenthood, the Missouri Supreme Court weighed in with a ruling last week.

The high court didn't reach the merits of the issue. Instead, it sent the case back to Cole County Circuit Judge Byron Kinder with a sharp admonition to Attorney General Jay Nixon.

Some background is in order.

Lawmakers voted in 1999, by a huge margin and across party lines, to pass an appropriations bill that barred family-planning funds from going to abortion providers.

It was the latest in many legislative attempts to stop the funding, which had been supported by Gov. Mel Carnahan. Almost immediately, Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit seeking to set aside the newly passed law.

As the state's attorney, Attorney General Jay Nixon faced a choice -- a choice he never fully made. He could defend the law, as his sworn duty, or he could defend the Carnahan administration, whose officials abhorred the law the legislature had just passed.

Nixon's office defended the Carnahan administration, specifically health department director Maureen Dempsey, in her opposition to the ban on funding.

Pro-life majorities in the legislature, seeing that they would have no attorney representing their position from the pro-choice attorney general, went to the trouble of hiring their own legal counsel -- St. Louis attorney Jordan Cherrick -- who of necessity was designated a special assistant attorney general for this case, defending the legislative position in favor of the funding ban.

When this case made its way to the Supreme Court, Nixon was told he can't have it both ways: He must choose only one side of the lawsuit, as canons of legal ethics demand that an attorney represent only one side.

In legal parlance, the high court remanded the matter back to Kinder's court for further proceedings. Within two hours of this action, Nixon announced he was firing Cherrick and would continue defending the Holden administration which, like Carnahan's, is firmly pro-choice.

Lawmakers, who may decide to rehire Cherrick and pursue a defense of their position, are still reading the high court decision and sorting it all out.

One thing is clear, though: The decision was another low point for Jay Nixon's legal career.