House Republicans have disclosed how much money taxpayers will pay for their frivolous lawsuit against the president.
House Republicans revealed Monday they will pay an outside law firm $500 an hour to pursue their lawsuit against President Barack Obama, a disclosure that served to ratchet up the political controversy surrounding the GOP’s legal effort.
House Republicans said they had hired law firm Baker & Hostetler LLP and partner David Rivkin to make the legal case that Mr. Obama overstepped his legal authority in implementing the Affordable Care Act.
On the bright side, at least they didn’t hire Paul Clement again.
House Republicans paid Clement $2.3 million to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) at the Supreme Court. Or perhaps I should say taxpayers paid Clement $2.3 million.
The way House Republicans handled their defense of DOMA is significant because, in this case, they’ve set a “hard cap” on the total amount of money they plan to spend.
The contract signed and released by Rep. Candice Miller (R., Mich.), who chairs the Committee on House Administration, calls for the law firm to be paid $500 an hour in attorney’s fees while litigating the case. It also sets a hard cap of $350,000 for the total that can be paid to the law firm during the contract, which runs until the next Congress takes over in 2015.
House Republicans initially set a “hard cap” of $500,000 when they hired Clement to defend DOMA, but as you may recall they increased the cap three times and ultimately paid him $2.3 million under a final hard cap of $3 million.
Will Baker & Hostetler LLP also see their $350,00 cap lifted?
Perhaps not. The only reason I’m inclined to believe that the initial cap may not be surpassed is because the lawsuit could be thrown out of court before increasing the cap becomes necessary.
