House authorizes and spends 6x original amount on DOMA defense

[her209]

http://www.businessinsider.com/house-blag-money-doma-paul-clement-2013-3

After the President announced that the Justice Department would no longer commit resources to the legal defense of DOMA in February 2011, House Speaker John Boehner announced that the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) of the U.S. House of Representatives would take up the defense of DOMA.

Originally, the funding for this legal defense was capped at $500,000. The House GOP paid former Solicitor General and conservative Supreme Court rockstar Paul Clement to defend DOMA.

That cap has been repeatedly raised as the costs of defending the 1996 law have continued to spiral upwards. By October 2012, the GOP defense had burned through almost the entire new cap of $1.5 million.

Then, as of January, House Republicans authorized up to $3 million in government spending for Clement to defend the law.

All told, the House legal defense of the Defense of Marriage Act cost six times as much as the House GOP leadership originally anticipated.

Whoa! Imagine going over budget by 500%. Guess Issa is going to issue subpoenas and heads are going to roll in the House, right?

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I think the more important question was who the hell decided to roll with BLAG for their group name.

 

[michal1980]

Obama not defending the law is whats an outrage.

If he wants it changed, why not introduce new laws? hmmm. Isn't that what lawmakers should do?

 

[dawp]

why waste resources on it if they felt it was going to be struck down anyways. it was their call. and by the way it sounds, it was a good call.

 

[trenchfoot]

Obama not defending the law is whats an outrage.

If he wants it changed, why not introduce new laws? hmmm. Isn't that what lawmakers should do?

Bush and Cheney, with a wink and a nod, turned their backs on laws regulating the banking/business/insurance sectors during the whole eight years they were in office and wrote a plethora of signing statements to violate any other laws they felt were an obstacle toward pursuing their agenda. Were you outraged about that too? If so, my compliments on your even handedness toward defending our laws. If not, well, you suck.

Point being, both sides do it to one degree or another. Obama isn't special in that regard.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Obama not defending the law is whats an outrage.

If he wants it changed, why not introduce new laws? hmmm. Isn't that what lawmakers should do?

It's not his job to defend laws. It's his job to execute them; there's a difference. You could put drugs maybe in the category of not executing laws (even though he still does to an extent). What he basically did was say let the courts decide in regards to suits brought forth against the law rather than dumping millions of dollars down a trash disposal that's obviously going to end up useless in the end.

 

[michal1980]

why waste resources on it if they felt it was going to be struck down anyways. it was their call. and by the way it sounds, it was a good call.

It shouldn't be struck down.

He is attempting to ceding power to the courts. The house is right in trying to defend DOMA.

Congress writes laws, not the supreme court. Gays want marriage? Start electing people to congress to write a law allowing it.

The only question the supreme court should be asking, is that if congress has the power to define what marriage is.

If congress doesn't have that power, then who defines marriage? [legal marriage]


I personally am not comfortable with a bunch of unelected kings, creating laws in the USA.

Liberals are.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

It shouldn't be struck down.

He is attempting to ceding power to the courts. The house is right in trying to defend DOMA.

Congress writes laws, not the supreme court. Gays want marriage? Start electing people to congress to write a law allowing it.

The only question the supreme court should be asking, is that if congress has the power to define what marriage is.

If congress doesn't have that power, then who defines marriage? [legal marriage]


I personally am not comfortable with a bunch of unelected kings, creating laws in the USA.

Liberals are.

It's the courts power to determine it. It's called checks and balances. He ceded nothing. He only didn't provide the funding to defend court cases, which I don't believe he is obligated to.

 

[UberNeuman]

Liberals are.

They’re Coming to Get You, Barbara!

 

[fskimospy]

It shouldn't be struck down.

He is attempting to ceding power to the courts. The house is right in trying to defend DOMA.

Congress writes laws, not the supreme court. Gays want marriage? Start electing people to congress to write a law allowing it.

The only question the supreme court should be asking, is that if congress has the power to define what marriage is.

If congress doesn't have that power, then who defines marriage? [legal marriage]


I personally am not comfortable with a bunch of unelected kings, creating laws in the USA.

Liberals are.

Where did you get this silly idea? The courts are there to see if DOMA agrees with the constitution in its entirety, not just if congress has the power to regulate marriage.

 

[TerryMathews]

It shouldn't be struck down.

He is attempting to ceding power to the courts. The house is right in trying to defend DOMA.

Congress writes laws, not the supreme court. Gays want marriage? Start electing people to congress to write a law allowing it.

The only question the supreme court should be asking, is that if congress has the power to define what marriage is.

If congress doesn't have that power, then who defines marriage? [legal marriage]


I personally am not comfortable with a bunch of unelected kings, creating laws in the USA.

Liberals are.

If congress lacks the power to regulate marriage then isn't this also unconstitutional? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morrill_Anti-Bigamy_Act

The gay community might legalize plural marriage.

 

[cliftonite]

It shouldn't be struck down.

He is attempting to ceding power to the courts. The house is right in trying to defend DOMA.

Congress writes laws, not the supreme court. Gays want marriage? Start electing people to congress to write a law allowing it.

The only question the supreme court should be asking, is that if congress has the power to define what marriage is.

If congress doesn't have that power, then who defines marriage? [legal marriage]


I personally am not comfortable with a bunch of unelected kings, creating laws in the USA.

Liberals are.

So congress can create laws that go against the constitution?

 

[fskimospy]

The incoherence here is pretty funny too. Conservatives are freaking out and calling SCOTUS kings, etc because they are afraid of a states rights based ruling.

I think we have effectively defined tyranny down to "a decision conservatives don't like".

 

[TerryMathews]

The incoherence here is pretty funny too. Conservatives are freaking out and calling SCOTUS kings, etc because they are afraid of a states rights based ruling.

I think we have effectively defined tyranny down to "a decision conservatives don't like".

Liberals did the same thing when they thought the Supremes were going to gut PPACA.

 

[nehalem256]

The incoherence here is pretty funny too. Conservatives are freaking out and calling SCOTUS kings, etc because they are afraid of a states rights based ruling.

I think we have effectively defined tyranny down to "a decision conservatives don't like".

States would still be free to define marriage however they want within the state.

The federal government would however only recognize marriages that complied with its definition.

If the Supreme Court says that the Federal government must accept any marriage a state grants I wonder how long it will take before states figure out how to abuse it. A state could for example declare that every person in the state is "married" to themselves giving all state residents preferential federal tax treatment, and then only extend married couple benefits to "civil unions" :whiste:

 

[glenn1]

http://www.businessinsider.com/house-blag-money-doma-paul-clement-2013-3

Whoa! Imagine going over budget by 500%. Guess Issa is going to issue subpoenas and heads are going to roll in the House, right?

Democrats like spending, they call it "stimulus," so what's the problem? Hell, it's no more a "waste" of money than the stupid idea from Paul Krugman to fake an invasion by space aliens. So political parties spending money on lawyers to fight each other's stupid ideas is actually good for the economy in his view.

 

[Zorba]

It shouldn't be struck down.

He is attempting to ceding power to the courts. The house is right in trying to defend DOMA.

Congress writes laws, not the supreme court. Gays want marriage? Start electing people to congress to write a law allowing it.

The only question the supreme court should be asking, is that if congress has the power to define what marriage is.

If congress doesn't have that power, then who defines marriage? [legal marriage]


I personally am not comfortable with a bunch of unelected kings, creating laws in the USA.

Liberals are.

So you are not comfortable with the USSC throwing out DOMA, and if they do they are "unelected kings." But you were rooting like crazy for them to throw out Obamacare, and if they had they would be "conservative heroes."

 

[Genx87]

Sounds about right for a govt funded adventure. 6x the cost of the original estimate.

 

[Zorba]

Democrats like spending, they call it "stimulus," so what's the problem?

Bush had at least one stimulus package as well, or have you forgotten your "free" check mailed to your house?

 

[nehalem256]

So you are not comfortable with the USSC throwing out DOMA, and if they do they are "unelected kings." But you were rooting like crazy for them to throw out Obamacare, and if they had they would be "conservative heroes."

Obamacare compels people to engage in economic activity.

DOMA does not compel people to do anything.

See the difference?

 

[khon]

Obamacare compels people to engage in economic activity.

DOMA does not compel people to do anything.

See the difference?

DOMA is in clear violation of the 14th amendment, so it should be struck down. Making sure the constitution is followed is what the court does.

 

[nehalem256]

DOMA is in clear violation of the 14th amendment, so it should be struck down. Making sure the constitution is followed is what the court does.

Treating fundamentally different relationships differently is not a violation of equal protection.

 

[thraashman]

Democrats like spending, they call it "stimulus," so what's the problem? Hell, it's no more a "waste" of money than the stupid idea from Paul Krugman to fake an invasion by space aliens. So political parties spending money on lawyers to fight each other's stupid ideas is actually good for the economy in his view.

You realize the one time expenditure of the stimulus did more to help the economy than the entire 10 years of the Bush tax cuts have. And it cost the country about a quarter as much and unlike the Bush tax cuts isn't still adding to the debt. This isn't my opinion either, it's the opinion of every god damn respected economist in the country.

 

[thraashman]

Obama not defending the law is whats an outrage.

If he wants it changed, why not introduce new laws? hmmm. Isn't that what lawmakers should do?

So if lawmakers passed a law legalizing, funding, and starting new Tuskegee experiment style human experiments that killed hundreds or thousands of Americans and Obama decided not to defend it when it went to the courts, you'd think it was an outrage?

 

[cliftonite]

Democrats like spending, they call it "stimulus," so what's the problem? Hell, it's no more a "waste" of money than the stupid idea from Paul Krugman to fake an invasion by space aliens. So political parties spending money on lawyers to fight each other's stupid ideas is actually good for the economy in his view.

Republicans don't like spending? Deficits didn't go up from 2000 to 2008?