UPDATE: House Republicans have recruited former Solicitor General Paul Clement to represent the government in federal cases challenging the Defense of Marriage Act.
House attorneys are expected to file a motion to intervene in Windsor v. United States of America in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Edie Windsor sued after the federal government refused to recognize her marriage to Thea Spyer, who died in 2009. As a result of DOMA, Windsor was forced to pay estate tax — a six-figure bill she would have been exempt from were her marriage recognized.
Earlier reportsfrom National Public Radio said House Speaker John Boehner has tapped a “big-name Republican lawyer” to argue DOMA’s constitutionality in the case.
Clement, who worked as solicitor general under President George W. Bush, refused to defend a federal law prohibiting mass transit agencies that receive federal funds from permitting ads on buses and subways supporting medical marijuana in 2004, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
In March, a majority of the five-member House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group — Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy — voted to authorize the House general counsel to intervene in multiple federal lawsuits against DOMA as well as retain outside attorneys.
"I don't think the House had any choice but to take the position that we were going to defend the work of the Congress. And only the courts are in the position of determining the constitutionality of any bill," Boehner said in a response to a question from the Washington Blade in an April 7 press conference.
Atty. Gen. Eric Holder announced in February that Section 3 of DOMA was unconstitutional and that the Justice Department would no longer defend the 1996 law in court.
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