Outside the Beltway

John Boehner: Congress Likely To Take Over Defense Of DOMA

Doug Mataconis · Monday, February 28, 2011 · 2 comments

Not surprisingly, House Speaker John Boehner said today that Congress is likely to take over defense of the Defense Of Marriage Act now that the Obama Administration has announced that it would not be doing so:

The House is likely to take steps to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in an interview posted Monday.

Boehner, the leader of the Republican-held House, said he and and his members are considering a number of options to defend DOMA after President Obama ordered the Justice Department to stop defending the 1990s law in court.

“I’d be very surprised if the House didn’t decide that they were going to defend the law,” Boehner said on “The Brody File” of the Christian Broadcasting Network.

This is not at all unusual, as I documented over the weekend, and Boehner even admits as much in the interview:

“It’s happened before where administrations have decided they weren’t going to go out and vigorously defend a law that Congress passed, but I really am disappointed in the president in his actions,” Boehner said. “But if the president won’t lead, if the president won’t defend DOMA, then you’ll see the House of Representatives defend our actions in passing a bill that frankly passed overwhelmingly.”

So, see, no Constitutional crisis.