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A subcommittee in the Republican-controlled U.S. House is set on April 15 to hear testimony in a hearing titled “Defending Marriage.”This is silly! Where is the panel for jobs? Where is the panel for education and proper child care? Where is the panel for destroying the tax cuts for the rich?
The hearing, which is set to take place before the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, is scheduled to begin at 10 am in Room 2141 of the Rayburn House Office Building.
As of Friday, no witness list was posted on the committee website, nor was the intent the hearing immediately known. Whether the likely impending shutdown of the federal government would cancel or postpone the hearing also wasn’t immediately clear.
Charlotte Sellmyer, a House Judiciary Committee spokesperson, said more information would be available next week.
“Per our office policy, we release background and witness information one day prior to the hearing, so please check back in with us next week,” Sellmyer said.
Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), chair of the committee, has said President Obama could be impeached for his decision to drop his administration’s defense of the Defense of Marriage Act in court, and the upcoming hearing would likely represent his views.
The Bipartisan House Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), by a 3-2 vote over the objections of House Democratic Leaders Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), directed the House General Counsel to defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court, according to a statement just issued by a group of Democratic lawmakers.
Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Barney Frank (D-MA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Jared Polis (D-CO), David Cicilline (D-RI), and John Conyers (D-MI) just issued the following joint statement:
“This 3-2 vote, carried over the vigorous objection of House Democratic Leaders and structured to avoid a vote of the House as a whole, is partisanship at its worst.
“The President correctly concluded that the Defense of Marriage Act cannot and should not be defended in court. It has been 15 years since Congress enacted DOMA, and the myths and stereotypes used to support its enactment have been shattered. Married gay and lesbian couples pay taxes, serve their communities, struggle to balance work and family, raise children and care for aging parents. Their contributions and needs are no different than anyone else’s. The majority of Americans understand this and now favor extending the time-honored tradition of marriage to loving and committed gay and lesbian couples. There is no legitimate reason for the federal government to continue denying married gay and lesbian couples the legal security, rights and responsibilities that recognition of their marriages would provide.
“We are extremely disappointed that the House Republican Leadership has decided to actively promote and defend discrimination; and they cannot cloak their intentions with the false assertion that the President or DOJ have failed to execute the law faithfully. The Administration considered this issue carefully, over several years, and opted not to defend DOMA in court after extensive study of the legal and factual issues at stake. Based on the lack of any reasonable arguments that justify the harm that DOMA imposes on loving gay and lesbian couples, DOJ correctly concluded that Section 3 of the law violates the Constitution. Its conclusion was hardly remarkable, as one federal judge already has ruled that the law is unconstitutional and cannot be justified under even the lowest level of judicial review.
“The President’s decision that DOJ should not be expected or required to continue making harmful and unreasonable arguments that demean its credibility, and that of the American people, was appropriate. While the decision not to continue defending a law is rare – as it should be – it is not without precedent. The President has pledged to honor his duty to faithfully execute the law by enforcing Section 3 of DOMA until it is either struck down or repealed. His courageous decision also honors his oath to ‘preserve, protect and defend the Constitution’ by ensuring that the rights it guarantees have meaning.
“Rather than seeking to defend this law in court, House Republican Leaders should work with us to repeal DOMA. This action debunks House Republican Leadership’s claim of being the so-called guarantor of states’ rights. House Republican Leaders seem only to favor states’ rights when it suits them ideologically. Rather than recognizing every states’ married couples equally, Section 3 of DOMA refuses to recognize the marriages of gay and lesbian couples from five states and the District of Columbia. Those states have a clear interest in ensuring that all of their married couples receive the same recognition under federal law. Certainly, Republican Leadership is not acting in these states’ interests.”
The move comes in the wake of today's 4:30 p.m. meeting of the BLAG, which Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) convened on March 4 in response to the Department of Justice's Feb. 23 decision that it would no longer defend Section of DOMA.More to come, y'all. More to come
The bill now moves on to the Iowa Senate, where Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal has vowed to fight attempts to pass the amendment. If passed through both legislative bodies in two consecutive General Assemblies, the issue could be on the ballot as soon as 2013.I hope this dies in Senate. More to come.
“The proposed amendment devalues families and divides Iowans,” said One Iowa Executive Director Carolyn Jenison. “The Constitution is meant to protect the freedoms and liberties of all Iowans. It is inappropriate to use the political process to single out and deny a group of Iowans of their constitutional protections.”
“This goes beyond politics,” said Iowa City resident Katie Imborek. “This is about our family and the ability for Paula and me to care for one another and our two children. At a time when so many Iowans are struggling just to make ends meet, I don’t understand why legislators would choose to take up this issue.”
The House has passed a bill to extend middle-class tax cuts while letting those for the wealthy expire, even as talks continue on extending the cuts for everyone.
The bill is a political maneuver to satisfy Democratic supporters who oppose extending tax cuts for the wealthy. Even if the bill passes the House, it has no chance in the Senate, where Democrats need Republican support to pass a tax bill.
Sweeping tax cuts enacted under former President George W. Bush expire at the end of the year. A small bipartisan group of lawmakers and Obama administration officials continued negotiating Thursday on a deal that could extend all the tax cuts, at least temporarily.The Senate is next, let's see what happens.
The House passed the Democratic bill by a vote of 234 to 188.
