The battle goes on. House Republicans have agreed to spend up to $3 million dollars to continue to defend the Defense of Marriage Act.
On January 4th, Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.), chairwoman of the House Administration Committee, signed a newly-revised contract with Bancroft LLC, the law firm that has been representing the House in cases involving the federal ban on gay marriage since 2011. House leaders took over the legal defense of DOMA that year when the Obama administration decided the Act was unconstitutional and announced they would no longer defend it.
The change in the contract comes as a result of new language added to the rules package for the 113th Congress that gives the House legal team the power to continue paying outside counsel to defend DOMA. All but one Republican voted to pass the rules package.
The contract states that the current financial ceiling of $2,750,000.00 may be raised to $3 million dollars when the need arises.
Not surprisingly, this news did not sit well with House Democrats. Their opposition to the move was voiced in a letter drafted by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and sent to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Oh.) on Tuesday.
"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.
The letter goes on to question the motives of House Republicans regarding committing more taxpayer money to defend DOMA while calling for fiscal responsibility.
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