For months, Senate Republican candidate Kelly Ayotte's campaign has promoted that she "won" a U.S. Supreme Court decision, defending a 2003 New Hampshire law requiring that a minor girl notify a parent before getting an abortion.

Yet, as attorney general in April 2009, Ayotte approved spending $300,000 in taxpayer money to settle the case and pay the legal costs of the opposing party, after a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge decided Planned Parenthood of Northern New England was the winner.

The state paid Planned Parenthood with two payments of $150,000 each in April and August 2009. These payments quietly passed through the state's budget office and did not require the approval of the Legislature or Gov. John Lynch...