Nancy Pelosi and Democrats have been posturing and saying that DOMA ought not to be defended because it will cost the House money.

Today Speaker John Boehner has endorsed the idea (first proposed by Rep. Steve King) that the Department of Justice should give up the funds it would have spent if they had honored their duty to robustly defend DOMA in the first place, and asks Minority Leader Pelosi to join him:

... The burden of defending DOMA, and the resulting costs associated with any litigation that would have otherwise been born by DOJ, has fallen to the House.  Obviously, DOJ’s decision results in DOJ no longer needing the funds it would have otherwise expended defending the constitutionality of DOMA.  It is my intent that those funds be diverted to the House for reimbursement of any costs incurred by and associated with the House, and not DOJ, defending DOMA.

I appreciate that ordinarily DOJ should be in a better position to defend a federal statute in the Courts, both in terms of resource allocations and in expertise of personnel.  However, by the President’s action through the Attorney General we have no choice; the House now faces that additional burden and cost.  I would also point out that the cost associated with DOJ’s decision is exacerbated by the timing of this decision.  Most of these cases are in the middle of lower court litigation and not ripe for Supreme Court review.  Had the Attorney General waited until the cases were ripe for certiorari to the Supreme Court, the costs associated with the House defense would have been exponentially lower.

I would welcome your joining me in support of redirecting those resources from the DOJ to the House that would otherwise have been necessary expenses on the Attorney General to defend this federal statute.  In the interim, I have directed House Counsel and House Administration Committee to assure that sufficient resources and associated expertise, including outside counsel, are available for appropriately defending the federal statute that the Attorney General refuses to defend. 

The Christian Post has posted their summary of the testimony Ed Whelan delivered at last Friday's hearing in the Subcommittee on the Constitution on the subject of DOMA (Mr. Whelan is the also main contributor to NRO's excellent Bench Memos blog):

Edward Whelan, who currently serves as president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, testified that Obama is knowingly playing political games when it comes to defending the federal law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. He expressed doubt that the president who is versed in constitutional law could change his stance on gay marriage 180 degrees because a Massachusetts judge chose to rule in favor of gay couples in two DOMA-related cases.

DOMA, which was enacted in 1996 under the Clinton administration, was initially challenged in the cases of Gill v. Office of Personnel Management and Massachusetts v. United States.

Whelan contended, "He would have to be very naive to think that it was anything other than a stealth strategy of step by step by step the administration doing whatever it can to promote same-sex marriage and induce the courts to adopt that approach."

We're working to produce videos of the testimony and other parts of the hearing and look forward to sharing those with you shortly!