Attorney General Leslie Rutledge today distributed a list of her top 17 achievements in office as she embarks on a re-election campaign. No. 1? Depriving poor women of medical treatment.
Say what?
Because I don’t think it’s fair for me to ask for your vote again without sharing my record so far, I thought I would give you 17 accomplishments as we reach the end of an eventful 2017:
I successfully defended the State of Arkansas’s right to terminate Planned Parenthood from the Medicaid program.
Because she and Gov. Asa Hutchinson oppose abortion and legal, drug-induced abortions in the first eight weeks of pregnancy are among the services offered by Planned Parenthood, they’ve fought to stop Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid reimbursement for about $50,000 a year in other medical services for poor women, from health screening to abortion-preventing contraception. A federal judge blocked the unreasonable punishment of poor women, but the conservative 8th Circuit allowed the state suspension of funding to stay in place, unlike courts in other parts of the country. Planned Parenthood is fighting a variety of efforts by the state to put it out of business, including with U.S. Supreme Court appeals.
Rutledge is proud of her fight to cut off medical services to women. Very proud.
She also touts her work in support of air and water pollution.
To defend our state from spiraling energy costs, I challenged in court the Obama Administration’s so-called Clean Power Plan.
And
When the EPA threatened to devastate Arkansas’s top industry with their Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, I joined a lawsuit to protect our farmers from these burdensome, one-size-fits-all regulations.
She’s also proud of fighting for legal discrimination against gay people in the name of religion. As she euphemistically put it:
We are “One Nation Under God,” and that’s why I have made protecting religious conscience a cornerstone of my administration.
It’s a heckuva record. And as she says:
… imagine what can be accomplished with four more years?