“Louisiana’s taxpayers could be forced to pay nearly $9 million in legal expenses after the state’s failed effort to enforce a 2014 abortion law … nearly identical to a Texas abortion regulation … struck down by [the Supreme Court] in 2016,” CBS News reported on Tuesday, March 23, 2021.
A law firm representing Louisiana’s abortion providers wants $8,654,347 from the state for attorney fees and legal expenses, CBS News said.
Louisiana, one of America’s poorest states, “spent immense resources and taxpayer money” defending an abortion regulation already struck down by the courts, the law firm said. Texas had to pay $3.5 million for defenders’ legal expenses.
Deliberately enacting unconstitutional abortion laws is a widely used tactic of abortion opponents. Their aim is to force lower courts to invalidate these laws, then appeal to the Supreme Court in hopes of overturning Roe v. Wade. So far, it hasn’t worked.
While that can be a legitimate way to get courts to revisit precedents, it also can backfire if the court affirms the precedent and sticks the challengers with the legal costs.
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