Alaska Governor MikeDunleavy is making the state’s Supreme Court feel the pain of its own mandates.

Earlier this year, theAlaska Supreme Court declared unconstitutional two state law prohibiting taxdollars from being used to pay for abortions, except those deemed medicallynecessary. The court called the laws “under-inclusive” in a 4-1 decision andmandated the continued taxpayer funding of abortion in the state.

So when this year’snew budget reached Gov. Dunleavy’s desk, he used his line-item veto power tomake the court feel the consequences. Approximately $335,000 in state taxpayerdollars was spent on elective abortions in 2018, so Dunleavy cut the SupremeCourt’s budget by $335,000.

“The legislative andexecutive branch are opposed to state-funded elective abortions; the only branchof government that insists on state-funded elective abortions is the SupremeCourt. The annual cost of elective abortions is reflected by this reduction,”Dunleavy said in his explanation for the line-item veto.

The court responded byissuing a statement saying, “We assure all Alaskans that the Alaska CourtSystem will continue to render independent court decisions based on the rule oflaw, without regard to the politics of the day.” But that didn’t stop them fromalso urging the state legislature to take a political vote to overturn adifferent line-item veto of cost-of-living adjustments for court employees.

Alaska’s courts havecreated one of the most permissive state abortion regimes in the country.Alaska has no limit on abortion after Roe v. Wade in 1973, andthe state Supreme Court has blocked similar attempts to prohibit taxpayerfunding of abortion in the state in the past.

Alaska Family Action applauded Dunleavy’s clever move, saying, “The Alaska Supreme Court has a long history of extremist rulings on abortion. But until today, they never suffered any real consequences for it. Now they will start feeling the pain of their own arrogance.”

Photo credit: Governor Dunleavy via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0