Eliot Spitzer's cynical crusade
Monday, January 21, 2002     Daniel Leddy, Staten Island Live-Online

Four years ago, Democrat Eliot Spitzer rode his family's vast real estate fortune to become New York State attorney general, eking out a razor-thin victory over incumbent Republican Dennis Vacco.

While Spitzer has not officially declared himself a candidate for re-election, you can bet the ranch that he's going to seek another term. His plans became abundantly clear last week with his latest and most despicable political assault on those opposed to abortion.

A Staten Island facility dedicated to presenting an alternative to abortion was among numerous others throughout the state served by Spitzer's office with sweeping subpoenas designed to harass them and ultimately put them out of business. The facts admit of no other rational explanation, despite Spitzer's transparently false claim that he's really interested in whether these counseling centers are misrepresenting their services.

Although his witch hunt mocks the Constitution he's sworn to uphold, it should not come as a surprise. That Spitzer will say or do anything to further his political ambitions became crystal clear in 1994 when he emerged from the shadows of political anonymity to mount an unsuccessful primary challenge for the Democratic nomination for attorney general.

Although a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, he didn't let his political philosophy get in the way of trying to capitalize on the public's frustration with juvenile crime. Thus, in response to what was a hot-button issue of the time, he ran a series of television commercials dishonestly oversimplifying a complex subject and offering solutions more worthy of Attila the Hun than a serious candidate for top law enforcement officer of the state.

In 1998, Spitzer finally succeeded in securing the Democratic nomination for attorney general and was engaged in an uphill battle against Vacco as Election Day approached. Spitzer's intense courting of pro-choice voters received a huge boost when, on Oct. 23 of that year, Bart Slepian, a medical doctor who performed abortions at a clinic in Buffalo, was murdered in his home by a sniper. Spitzer seized upon the shameful incident to cast broad aspersions against all pro-life activists and question whether Vacco was genuinely committed to enforcing women's rights as enunciated in Roe v. Wade.

When the votes were finally tallied, Spitzer had his victory and New York State had an attorney general who knew where his political bread was buttered. In fact, one of his first acts in office was to seek an injunction against a coalition of pro-life groups. The attorney general's allegiance is supposed to be to the Constitution of the State of New York and the rights of all the people who live under it. But for Eliot Spitzer, if you don't believe in abortion, you're nothing more than an inviting target to be bullied, browbeaten, sued, or even criminally charged in furtherance of his political career.

Consider, for example, an action he brought to expand buffer zones to 60 feet around abortion clinics in Buffalo. In papers filed in federal court, Spitzer actually labeled legitimate protesters "nuisances," instead of acknowledging that they were American citizens engaged in a constitutionally protected activity.

An appellate court delivered a sharp rebuke to Spitzer, declaring that the buffer sought by him didn't just chill protest activity but would "effectively ban it."

That, of course, was precisely what Spitzer wanted to do. Nor has he been dissuaded from that goal.

Last August, he was ecstatic when a federal judge fined an upstate family of four a total of $80,000 for aggressive protesting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Utica. The attorney general called the staggering fine, "a complete win in the sense the legal precedent we got was precisely what we wanted."

Other than a person who realized substantial monetary gain from an illegal venture, when was the last time you heard of a defendant being fined such a large amount for any crime?

Now, with his eye firmly on November, Spitzer has stepped up his campaign of intimidation. The extremely broad subpoenas served by his office last week on alternative-to-abortion facilities require the recipients to turn over such things as policy records, procedures, forms given to clients, referral and training materials, website addresses, the names of staff who provided services and the names of individuals receiving services.

Compliance will be extremely burdensome and the possibility of being civilly or criminally charged is certain to deter people from volunteering their services to pregnant women seeking the wherewithal to give birth.

The Cross Road Foundation, a Staten Island facility based at the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin in Mount Loretto, opened in 1987 to offer advice to teen-agers and young women facing unplanned pregnancies. Lest there be any question about its purpose, the place is listed in the Yellow Pages under "Abortion Alternatives."

How can Spitzer seriously contend that it and other similarly targeted groups are misrepresenting themselves without insulting the intelligence of the women whose votes he's seeking?

When a decision is made to give birth, the agency offers food, shelter and baby supplies. Where requested, it will make referrals to adoption agencies. Cross Road is privately funded, receiving financial donations from individuals and material goods from churches and organizations.

According to Deacon James Stahlnecker, president of the board of directors, donations are significantly down since Sept. 11 and things are so bad that he personally had to pay two months back rent for a client.

The facility is hardly a match for a politically motivated attorney general armed with millions of dollars in public funding and an array of attorneys ready to do his bidding. In offering alternatives to abortion, these centers in no way threaten the reproductive rights enumerated in Roe v. Wade. Their work is the essence of constitutionally protected free speech, something that Spitzer knows very well. On the other hand, he also knows that the centers are irritating the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), which has bestowed generous financial contributions on him. Thus, for him, the choice was clear and the subpoenas were served. Daniel Leddy's On The Law column appears each Monday on the Advance Op-Ed Page. His e-mail address is JudgeLeddy@si.rr.com.