House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi isn't known as a small-government advocate. But she and members of her camp have sounded more like fiscal conservatives ever since House Speaker John Boehner hired a law firm for up to $500,000 to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the federal law banning gay marriage.
"The hypocrisy of this legal boondoggle is mind-blowing," Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said in a statement to the Washington Post this week. "Speaker Boehner is spending half a million dollars of taxpayer money to defend discrimination. If Republicans were really interested in cutting spending, this should be at the top of the list."
Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said in a statement that the California Democrat's "newfound concern for saving taxpayers money is encouraging."
"We hope it means we can count on her support for reducing DOJ's budget to recoup any costs incurred by the House so that taxpayers will bear no added cost for the administration's refusal to defend the laws of the United States," he said.
The contract with former Bush administration solicitor general Paul Clement was made after President Obama instructed the Justice Department in February not to defend the law he called unconstitutional. The department said other groups can do so, prompting House Republicans to pick up the slack.
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