New York Democrats Sink Chief Judge’s Nomination Because He Didn’t Do Enough to Shut Down Pro-Life Centers

New York Democratic governor Kathy Hochul’s nominee for chief justice of the state Supreme Court, Hector LaSalle, was rejected by the state senate’s Judiciary Committee in a close 10-9 vote on Wednesday. LaSalle, despite his protestations to the contrary, had been the subject of fierce criticism from progressive groups for being too moderate. “Those critiques,” Buffalo News reported, “were based on two rulings selected from his eight years as a state appellate division justice, covering more than 5,000 cases.”

One of those rulings had to do with organized labor. The other had to do with what activists euphemistically described as “abortion rights” — but in actuality, revolved around LaSalle’s insufficiently authoritarian posture toward persecuting pro-life crisis pregnancy centers. Buffalo News describes the 2017 ruling: 

LaSalle joined a unanimous 5-0 ruling in Evergreen Association Inc. v. Schneiderman, which was written by Justice Jeffrey A. Cohen, an appointee of another Democratic governor, David Paterson.

Evergreen Association, a nonprofit operating 12 crisis pregnancy centers in New York City encouraging women not to terminate their pregnancies, was being investigated by then-Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. His office was probing whether the centers were deceptively engaging in the unauthorized practice of medicine, including by locating centers in medical buildings and making them look like medical offices.

Schneiderman’s office served Evergreen with a subpoena demanding documents, and Evergreen sought to quash the subpoena entirely, arguing it was a politically motivated attack on a First Amendment right to advocate pro-life views . . . The court approved eight out of 10 subpoena demands, but narrowed them. One sought the name, credentials and educational background of every Evergreen staffer. The court limited the demand to staff providing “medical or medical-related services.”

The two demands that were quashed entirely sought promotional materials the nonprofit publicly disseminated, and documents relating to Evergreen’s sources of funding, finding those did not directly relate to the suspected unauthorized practice of medicine.

In its December letter to Hochul, the 46 law professors argued the decision was “shocking.”

So to be clear, the litmus test for judges in New York now is not just that they wholeheartedly support abortion rights; not just that they approve state persecution of pro-life pregnancy centers; but that they offer full-throated and unequivocal support for state persecution of pro-life pregnancy centers, on top of standard support for legal abortion. “Shocking,” indeed.