Paul D. Clement is a distinguished lawyer: a former U.S. Solicitor General (under President George W. Bush), partner with big-time law firms, legal scholar. So it’s probably not a big surprise that House Republicans are agreeing to triple the cap on his fees for defending the Defense of Marriage Act.
A change order to the contract that the House GOP leadership entered into with Clement allows his fees to go to $1.5 million, as Carolyn Lochhead reports on the Politics blog of The San Francisco Chronicle.
The 1996 law banning federal recognition of same-sex marriages has been a source of political discomfort and opportunity, depending on one’s perspective, and is likely to be an issue in the 2012 elections, as Main Justice noted recently. Earlier this year, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Department of Justice would no longer defend the law in court. Previously, the Department of Justice had walked a tightrope, saying it didn’t like the law but felt legally obligated to stand up for it.
House Republicans, displaying no such ambivalence and perhaps seeing an opportunity to capitalize on “family values” issues, decided that they would defend the law without reservations.
As Lochhead notes, “With same-sex marriage now legal in six states and the District of Columbia, DOMA conflicts are blossoming in areas of tax law, immigration law, Social Security and the like.” So Clement may earn his legal fees, and then some, especially if the DOMA issue reaches the U.S. Supreme Court.
