House sets $500K, $520-an-hour contract for DOMA defense - Josh Gerstein

House sets $500K, $520-an-hour contract for DOMA defense - Josh Gerstein: House sets $500K, $520-an-hour contract for DOMA defense

Leaders in the House have agreed to pay up to $520 an hour and up to $500,000 to a law firm retained to defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act after President Barack Obama instructed the Justice Department not to defend a key part of the law.

The contract is between the General Counsel of the House, the House Administration Committee and King and Spalding. Firm partner Paul Clement, a Solicitor General under President George W. Bush, is leading the defense of the 1996 law, which bans federal recognition of same-sex marriages. (Read the contract here.)

A spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who opposed the House's move to step into about a dozen pending suits over DOMA, issued a statement Tuesday portraying the hiring of Clement as a waste.

"The hypocrisy of this legal boondoggle is mind-blowing. 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," the spokesman, Drew Hammill, said.

The import of the $500,000 figure is unclear, but it appears to be a initial cap on the fees payable to the firm. The contract says the firm can quit work if the bill reaches that amount and no amendment or extension to the contract has been agreed to. Charges for support staff will be 75 percent of the firm's customary fee.

Clement and other lawyers and support staff involved in the case will be barred from lobbying the House during the term of the contract.

House leaders have said they want to recoup the funds by taking them out of the Justice Department budget, though the prospects for doing that are murky.