Seawytch
Information isnt Advocacy
Where is the "fiscal responsibility" here?
DOMA: House Republicans Poised To Spend $3 Million On Legal Defense
WASHINGTON -- House Republican leaders have signed on to spend up to $3 million to keep defending the Defense of Marriage Act in court, according to a copy of their newly revised legal contract obtained by The Huffington Post.[...]
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other GOP leaders hired attorneys at the law firm Bancroft LLC to represent the House in court cases involving the federal ban on gay marriage -- all with taxpayer dollars.[...]
The revised contract comes on the heels of House Republican leaders inserting language into the rules package for the 113th Congress that authorizes the House legal team to keep paying outside counsel to defend DOMA. The rules package also states that the House legal team continues to "speak for" all House members in its defense of DOMA -- language that infuriated Democrats opposed to the matter. [...]
House Democratic leaders, meanwhile, sent a letter to Boehner later Tuesday voicing their opposition to sinking more money into DOMA's defense -- particularly given Republicans' calls for fiscal responsibility.
"We wish to strongly reaffirm our objections to the repeated actions by the Republican leadership to secretly and dramatically increase the contract between the House and outside counsel in arguing to uphold the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in more than a dozen cases," reads the letter from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).
"It is the height of hypocrisy for House Republicans to waste public funds in one breath then claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility in the next," the letter continues. "With Republicans willing to take our economy and our country to the brink of default in the name of deficit reduction, there is simply no excuse for any Member of Congress to commit taxpayer dollars to an unnecessary -- and futile -- legal battle."
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other GOP leaders hired attorneys at the law firm Bancroft LLC to represent the House in court cases involving the federal ban on gay marriage -- all with taxpayer dollars.[...]
The revised contract comes on the heels of House Republican leaders inserting language into the rules package for the 113th Congress that authorizes the House legal team to keep paying outside counsel to defend DOMA. The rules package also states that the House legal team continues to "speak for" all House members in its defense of DOMA -- language that infuriated Democrats opposed to the matter. [...]
House Democratic leaders, meanwhile, sent a letter to Boehner later Tuesday voicing their opposition to sinking more money into DOMA's defense -- particularly given Republicans' calls for fiscal responsibility.
"We wish to strongly reaffirm our objections to the repeated actions by the Republican leadership to secretly and dramatically increase the contract between the House and outside counsel in arguing to uphold the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in more than a dozen cases," reads the letter from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).
"It is the height of hypocrisy for House Republicans to waste public funds in one breath then claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility in the next," the letter continues. "With Republicans willing to take our economy and our country to the brink of default in the name of deficit reduction, there is simply no excuse for any Member of Congress to commit taxpayer dollars to an unnecessary -- and futile -- legal battle."
DOMA: House Republicans Poised To Spend $3 Million On Legal Defense
