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Members of the House leadership decided Wednesday that they would defend the Defense of Marriage Act in federal lawsuits, stepping in for the Department of Justice, which announced a halt to defending such cases, under the direction of the president.
In a 3-2 vote by the members of the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, House speaker John Boehner, majority leader Eric Cantor, and majority whip Kevin McCarthy voted to defend the law, with Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer voting in the minority.
“Given the complexity and number of cases, this legal challenge would sap hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars, if not more, during a time of limited fiscal resources,” Pelosi said in a statement. “Pursuing this legal challenge distracts from our core challenges: creating jobs, strengthening the middle class, and responsibly reducing the deficit. And that is why I voted against this action today.”
Despite Boehner's statement touting the vote as being bipartisan, a group of Democratic lawmakers say the decision was far from impartial. Democratic representatives Jerrold Nadler, Barney Frank, Tammy Baldwin, Jared Polis, David Cicilline, and John Conyers said in a statement shortly after the vote that the action was a display of "partisanship at its worst."
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