NOM Chairman Maggie Gallagher's latest column:
This week, House Speaker John Boehner came out swinging with two announcements: Former Solicitor General Paul Clement would represent the House in its effort to defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and the Justice Department should pay for it.
Two swings, two home runs.
Continue reading at Real Clear Politics.
11 Comments
Orin Kerr, a law prof who blogs at the Volokh Conspiracy, calls Clement "perhaps the best Supreme Court advocate in practice today" in a comment to his post here: http://volokh.com/2010/01/25/nra-gets-oral-argument-time-in-mcdonald-v-city-of-chicago/
Read a profile of Clement here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/27/AR2007082701442.html?hpid=sec-politics
It was a great pick. Thank heavens for Speaker Boehner.
Yes, Speaker Boehner's deliciously ironic observation that the Department of Justice clearly wouldn't be needing the funds it would otherwise have spent performing its duty to defend DOMA was an amusing high point of the week.
Touche indeed, Mr. Speaker.
I predict that the entire DOMA gambit by the President is going to rapidly turn out to have been too clever by half.
Watch as his cutesy-pie political calculation blows up into a huge political liability just in time for his reelection campaign.
Gay pseudo-marriage is a gigantic loser as a political issue, and it will be much much much more so once the true extent of Walker's malfeasance in office is investigated and reported.
Its looking like a good year indeed for marriage
Maggie, you forgot to mention that the attorney charges quite a bit per hour which means that this could cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars by the time this is over and DOMA is eventually ruled unconstitutional, which equals an astronomical waste of money.
Absolutely, he's right, they should pay for it, and I'm glad to see him take a stand.
Finally, using our tax dollars for a good cause. Excellent news!
What a wast of our tax dollars.
Carlos:
If you don't like it then why don't you simply stop paying your taxes?
Great news!
Hey mama5! Good to see you again!
To those who say it's a waste of taxpayer dollars, would you rather have the citizen unable to sue the government? Or would you rather have the government unable to defend any of its laws should the citizen sue? Or are you okay with the DOJ defending laws with which you agree as long as they abandon the ones with which you don't?
The first choice would take us one step closer to a dictatorship, the second would take us one step closer to mob rule, and the third would take us one step closer to a monarchy in which You are the Ruler-For-Life.
None of those appeal to me.
How many tax dollars were wasted on Obama's pseudo-defense of Doma? At least now we'll get a *real* defense.