Florida’s Attorney General is refusing to reimburse attorney’s fees, after fighting tooth and nail to deny same-sex couples the right to get married.
Attorneys who represented same-sex couples and worked to defeat the marriage ban estimate that about $500,00 could be owed.
But Bondi has objected to a motion from lawyers who are attempting to be compensated for their representation of gay couples.
Bondi mounted appeal after appeal, even after a federal judge in Tallahassee struck down Florida’s gay marriage ban last year. She continued her fight in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. And again, not satisfied, Florida appealed again, taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Eventually, Florida voluntarily dismissed its last appeal, after the U.S. Supreme Court made same-sex marriage the law of the land.
In twisted logic, Bondi has said that the state shouldn’t have to pay for the lengthy appeals process that litigants were put through, given that Florida voluntarily dismissed its last appeal.
“It really is the height of hypocrisy to argue we shouldn’t be entitled to fees when they put us through this,” said attorney Stephen Rosenthal represented a group of Miami plaintiffs in the case, according to Raw Story. “They knew full well that if they lost, that they and, frankly, taxpayers, would be on the hook for paying for their unwise legal defense of an unconstitutional law.”
