In 2003, Ayotte became legal counsel to Governor Craig Benson. Three months later, she returned to the Attorney General's office as Deputy Attorney General. In June 2004, Governor Benson appointed Ayotte as Attorney General of the State of New Hampshire after Peter Heed resigned.
In June 2004, Governor Benson appointed Ayotte as Attorney General of the State of New Hampshire after Peter Heed resigned. Ayotte had both of her children while serving as the first and only female New Hampshire Attorney General.
In 2004, New Hampshire Attorney General Peter Heed appealed the ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which affirmed the district court's ruling. In 2004, Ayotte appealed the First Circuit's ruling to the Supreme Court, over the objection of incoming Democratic Governor John Lynch.
Ayotte supported the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions in McDonald v. City of Chicago and District of Columbia v. Heller, which invalidated strict gun laws in Chicago and Washington. In 2006, Ayotte opposed a Republican-backed bill to established a castle doctrine for New Hampshire.
320 (2006), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving a facial challenge to New Hampshire 's parental notification abortion law. The First Circuit had ruled that the law was unconstitutional and an injunction against its enforcement was proper. The Supreme Court vacated this judgment and remanded the case, but avoided a substantive ruling on the challenged law or a reconsideration of prior Supreme Court abortion precedent. Instead, the Court only addressed the issue of remedy, holding that invalidating a statute in its entirety "is not always necessary or justified, for lower courts may be able to render narrower declaratory and injunctive relief."
It was signed into law on June 19, 2003 by Governor Craig Benson, who had lobbied heavily for the law, with an effective date of December 31, 2003.
DiClerico declined to rule on the plaintiffs' other claim, that the Act was unconstitutional for failing to provide specific protections for the confidentiality of a minor seeking a judicial waiver.
On November 17, 2003, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, Concord Feminist Health Center of Portsmouth, Feminist Health Center of Portsmouth, and Wayne Goldner, M.D. filed a complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, seeking a declaratory judgment that the Parental Notification Act was unconstitutional and a preliminary injunction to prevent its enforcement once it became effective. On December 29, 2003, Judge Joseph A. DiClerico, Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire issued an order finding the Parental Notification Act unconstitutional and permanently enjoining its enforcement.
Salerno, 481 U.S. 739 (1987). A three judge panel composed of Chief Judge Michael Boudin, Circuit Judge Juan R. Torruella and District Judge Saris unanimously affirmed the judgment by Judge DiClerico for the same reasons he stated.
Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, who replaced Heed in 2004, appealed the case to the Supreme Court of the United States over the objections of Benson's successor, Governor John Lynch. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the case, which was the first case challenging an abortion law that the Court had accepted in five years. Lynch subsequently submitted an amicus curiae brief in opposition to the Parental Notification Act.
The Court considered under what circumstances federal courts can enjoin enforcement of abortion laws if in some cases such laws would have the effect of regulating abortion more strictly than is consistent with Supreme Court precedent, as the New Hampshire law did in some circumstances.
After a 16-year legal career in which she rose to become attorney general for the state of New Hampshire, Kelly Ayotte won election to the United States Senate as only the second female Senator in her state’s history. On Capitol Hill, Ayotte quickly made a name for herself in national security policy. As the ranking Republican and then head of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, she fought automatic cuts to military spending that were part of the federal government’s 2011 budget sequestration. “I’m still for making these reductions,” Ayotte said in 2012, “just not through sacrificing our national defense.” 1
26 Her Democratic challenger was the popular New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan. “If you had a race between Maggie Hassan and Kelly Ayotte,” former state attorney general Tom Rath noted, “you literally have a race between the two most popular political figures in the state.” 27
“The message,” Ayotte declared, “was that America would look the other way on Russia’s transgressions.” 17 She also made it clear that she blamed Russia’s leadership for disrupting international politics. “ [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has instigated, fueled, and perpetuated the crisis in eastern Ukraine. If Putin is truly concerned about the well-being of Ukrainians in Donetsk, he could end this crisis by stopping the flow of Russian fighters and weapons to Ukraine,” she said. 18
Attorney General in 2015. 21 On immigration reform, Ayotte described the 2013 proposal that included a path to citizenship for longtime undocumented immigrants as “tough but fair.” 22 And in 2012, she bucked her party to vote in favor of authorizing the Environmental Protection Agency to set toxic air standards from power plants. 23 On the issue of climate change, she believed that “human activity significantly contributes to climate change,” and her approach to environmental issues was often pragmatic. 24 “I went to the Senate to solve problems for the country and New Hampshire,” she explained. “When you have something like the Land and Water Conservation Fund that you know has bipartisan support … yet you’re fighting to get … it done, it’s frustrating. But it’s important.” 25
In addition to Armed Services, Ayotte served on a number of different committees in the Senate, expanding her policy experience: Budget; Commerce, Science, and Transportation; Small Business and Entrepreneurship; and Aging in the 112th Congress (2011–2013). After one Congress, she transferred off Small Business and Entrepreneurship to Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in the 113th Congress (2013–2015). In the 114th Congress (2015–2017), Ayotte headed two subcommittees: Readiness and Management Support on Armed Services and Aviation Operations, Safety and Security on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
In the general election, Ayotte faced Democratic Congressman Paul Hodes, who sought to shore up his candidacy by criticizing Ayotte’s tenure as attorney general. But Ayotte responded with ads touting some of her successful prosecutions and criticized Hodes’s support for the Affordable Care Act. In what turned out to be a wave election nationwide for the GOP, Ayotte defeated Hodes with 60 percent of the vote. 9
After serving as law clerk to Justice Sherman Horton of the New Hampshire supreme court from 1993 to 1994, Ayotte moved to private practice. In 1998 she became a prosecutor in the New Hampshire attorney general’s office, rising to become head of the homicide division. In a widely covered trial, she successfully prosecuted the killers of two Dartmouth College professors in 2001. 3 Ayotte briefly served as counsel to New Hampshire Governor Craig Benson in 2003 before he named her state deputy attorney general. In 2004 Benson appointed Ayotte the first female attorney general in New Hampshire history where, among other cases, she argued Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, in which she defended the state’s recently adopted law requiring parental notification for minors to get an abortion. Following a series of defeats in the lower courts, she appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled that the lower courts were incorrect to strike down the entire statute as unconstitutional but avoided commenting on the broader legal challenge. In 2009 Democratic Governor John Lynch reappointed Ayotte as attorney general. 4
Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, 546 U.S. 320 (2006), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving a facial challenge to New Hampshire's parental notification abortion law. The First Circuit had ruled that the law was unconstitutional and an injunction against its enforcement was proper. The Supreme Court vacated this judgment and remanded the case, but avoided a substantive ruling on the challenged law or a reconsideration …
In June, 2003, the New Hampshire Parental Notification Prior to Abortion Act, "an act requiring parental notification before abortions may be performed on unemancipated minors," was narrowly passed by the New Hampshire General Court. It was signed into law on June 19, 2003 by Governor Craig Benson, who had lobbied heavily for the law, with an effective date of December 31, 2003.
On November 17, 2003, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, Concord Feminist Health …
Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, who replaced Heed in 2004, appealed the case to the Supreme Court of the United States over the objections of Benson's successor, Governor John Lynch. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the case, which was the first case challenging an abortion law that the Court had accepted in five years. Lynch subsequently submitted an amicus curiae brief in opposition to the Parental Notification Act.
The New Hampshire law was repealed in 2007, making rehearing at the district court level moot.
The New Hampshire parental notification law was passed again in 2011 after the Republican-controlled House and Senate overrode then-Democratic governor John Lynch's veto.
• Abortion in the United States
• Abortion law
• Roe v. Wade
• Abortion debate
• Works related to Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England at Wikisource
• Text of Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, 546 U.S. 320 (2006) is available from: Justia Oyez (oral argument audio) Supreme Court (slip opinion)
• Transcript of Oral Argument before the Supreme Court