James says she will not enforce Texas law.
1 of 2 | Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the acting clerk of New York’s Ulster County over an apparent refusal to file a court documents for a New York doctor who allegedly sent abortion medication last year to a female patient in Texas. “I am stepping in to defend the integrity of our courts against this blatant overreach,” New York Attorney General Letitia James (pictured Feb. 2024 in New York City). File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
New York’s Attorney General Letitia James intervened on Monday in a Texas-filed lawsuit against a county clerk likely to be the first constitutional litmus test on abortion laws related to telemedicine.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the acting clerk of New York’s Ulster County, Taylor Bruck, in July over Bruck’s apparent refusal on multiple occasions to file a court summons and summary judgment for a doctor in the Empire State who allegedly sent abortion medication last year to a female patient in Texas.
“I am stepping in to defend the integrity of our courts against this blatant overreach,” James said in a statement.
Bruck twice refused to enforce Paxton’s lawsuit, citing New York’s telemedicine abortion shield law, after Paxton sued New York doctor Margaret Carpenter and a Texas judge ordered her to pay $113,000 in legal penalties.
“Texas has no authority in New York, and no power to impose its cruel abortion ban here,” James added.
On Monday, James filed a notice to Ulster County Supreme Court Judge David Gandin advising Gandin that she was invoking a “statutory right” to intervene in the Texas case.
According to James’s state notice, her office will submit written arguments by September 19 in addition to supplemental filings later in the month.
Bruck, meanwhile, expressed gratitude to James in a statement on Monday for “stepping in to help in this case.”
“There’s not much I can say given the ongoing litigation, but I will say that I’m proud to live in a state like New York that had the foresight to pass the Shield Law,” Bruck told The Hill.
