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House Republicans are expected to move Friday to assert themselves as defenders of the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages. Last month, the Obama administration said it had decided the law was unconstitutional, and had directed the Justice Department to stop defending it in court.

While Republican rebukes to Mr. Obama’s decision were largely muted, Speaker John Boehner has said that the Republican-controlled House would likely make a move to defend the law.

In an television interview Wednesday night, Mr. Boehner called the President’s decision “outrageous”. He added: “It’s the law of the land. It’s the job of the Justice Department to defend the work of our government. And I just think it’s outrageous. We’re looking at our options, what’s available to us to intervene. The short – the long and the short of this is that we are going to intervene. The question is how do we do it.”

Under federal law, whenever the executive branch declines to defend a statute it believes is unconstitutional, the Attorney General must inform Congress of that decision, which he has in this case, and lawmakers must then determine whether to appoint their own lawyer to defend the statute in court.

This decision can be done through a resolution, or via the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, made up of the three majority leaders and two most senior minority members in the House; the majority can then instruct the House General Counsel, on behalf of the House, to seek to intervene
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Neal Devins, a professor of law at William and Mary Law School, said that such disputes between the legislative and executive branches tend to center around the separation of powers, so the case around the marriage act is unusual. “The House can appear as an amicus or ask the court to appoint it as a party in the case,” he said.

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From Today’s Times:

- Washington is keeping a close eye on the drama in the Wisconsin Capitol. Republicans in Madison were unable to hold a vote on a controversial cost-saving measure after 14 Democrats skipped town to delay a bill that would slash collective bargaining rights for public employees, The Times’s Monica Davey reports.

- In Washington, Speaker John Boehner pledged his support for Wisconsin’s governor, a fellow budget hawk. Meanwhile, Mr. Obama’s political arm, Organizing for America, moved quickly to rally support for the state’s union leaders and public workers. That, of course, has conservatives riled up, some of whom point to a White House strategy session scheduled for early March at the A.F.L.-C.I.O. headquarters in Washington as evidence of the administration’s unabashed collusion with the unions.

-  While most of Congress is warring over the broad outlines of the federal budget, a smaller, yet similarly intense battle is brewing over federal funding for Planned Parenthood. The Times’s Erik Eckholm delves into the strongest assault yet on federal funds for Planned Parenthood, including a proposal in the Republican-led House to cut the entire $317 million for family planning in its 2011 spending plan, which is expected to pass by the weekend.

- Unlike the case with devastating budgets released by other cities and states, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City had this to say about his city’s spending plan: “It’s good news.” The Times’s Javier C. Hernandez sums up the details of the $65.6 billion spending plan for the next fiscal year and identifies where the new revenues came from.

Around the Web:

-        If  Republicans and Democrats don’t agree on a budget plan by March 4, federal agencies will close their doors. What would a shutdown actually look like? The Washington Post offers one scenario.

-        More than half the states are not complying with a post-Virginia Tech law that requires them to report the names of mentally ill people to a national database to prevent them from buying guns, an Associated Press review has found.

-        In the last 10 years the technology industry’s top spenders on Washington lobbying have cycled out quickly. Only a third of the companies ranked in the top 15 for lobbying expenditures in 1998 remained on that list in 2010, the Center for Responsive Politics reports. Google, which was not even founded until September 1998, now ranks third. It is no wonder, given the attention they’re getting from the White House; Mr. Obama sat down with top tech C.E.O.s in California Thursday night.

-        The House voted Thursday to defund nine White House “czars,” passing an amendment to the 2011 spending bill 249 to 179. The Obama administration’s appointed policy jobs have been a favorite target of Republicans since the controversy surrounding Van Jones, the so-called “green jobs czar,” led to his resignation in September 2009.

Washington Happenings:

-        Mr. Obama heads to Hillsboro, Ore.,  Friday to meet with Paul Otellini, the executive of Intel, and learn about the company’s science, technology, engineering and math education programs. Later, he will deliver remarks on out-educating the country’s competitors.

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House Speaker John Boehner said Wednesday that he and his fellow Republican leaders found “common ground’’ with President Obama during a lunch at the White House, but did not reach any specific agreements on how to cut spending to reduce the federal deficit.

With the White House preparing to send a free trade agreement with South Korea to Congress for its approval, Mr. Boehner said the two sides believe that trade is one area where they might work out a compromise. He said he told the president the House is ready to take up not only the South Korea pact, but also two others that have been stalled – one with Colombia and another with Panama.

But the White House has said it is seeking amendments to the Colombia and Panama agreements before it will move forward.

Mr. Obama, who vowed to do a better job of reaching out to Republicans after the drubbing his party took in the November mid-terms, invited Mr. Boehner, Representative Eric Cantor, the Republican leader, and Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican whip over for a discussion that focused largely on the economy. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the White House chief of staff, William M. Daley, also attended.

Mr. Cantor called it “a fairly robust conversation about the need for all of us to work together to send a signal that we’re serious about cutting spending. We had agreement on that. I guess the particulars and the details will be where the disagreements may lie.’’

There’s little question about that; the initial list of budget cuts produced today by Republicans in the House took aim straight at some of Mr. Obama’s most favored proposals, such as those involving green energy and high speed passenger trains.

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Want to get caught up on all the juicy quotations and funny moments from over the weekend? Here’s a quick rundown of the best lines.

1. Move over Bill Clinton and your saxophone. Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, might have an icy stare. But he melted everyone in the room at a fund-raiser for a children’s charity in St. Petersburg when he sang “Blueberry Hill” — in English — in front of a room packed with celebrities. American movie stars like Kevin Costner and Goldie Hawn gave the Russian leader a standing ovation.”I found my thrill, on Blueberry Hill. On Blueberry Hill, when I found you.”

2. Kate Gosselin, whose own show on TLC –”Jon and Kate Plus 8? — was once a top hit, went camping with Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, on Ms. Palin’s TLC show Sunday. But it didn’t go well. Ms. Goslin whined and complained about the cold, the food and, well, just about everything. “I don’t see a table, I don’t see utensils, I don’t see hand-cleansing materials,” she said. “This is not ideal conditions. I am freezing to the bone, I have 19 layers on, my hands are frigid. I held it together as long as I could, and I’m done now!”

3. John Boehner, the soon-to-be speaker of the House, demonstrates a bit of trouble with the word “compromise,” telling CBS’s Leslie Stahl on “60 Minutes” that he rejects the word itself, if not the idea behind it. “When you say the word ‘compromise’ … a lot of Americans look up and go, ‘Uh-oh, they’re gonna sell me out.’ And so finding common ground, I think, makes more sense,” Mr. Boehner said. Asked whether he’s afraid of the word, Mr. Boehner added: “I reject the word.”

4. There are moments when “Saturday Night Live” is especially funny. Saturday wasn’t one of them as the show opened with Fred Armisen playing President Obama. Mr. Armisen explained that he had compromised on the tax cuts for the rich because the Republicans had — literally — held him hostage for three days. “Bound, gagged, blindfolded, in a dark room somewhere outside Washington,” he joked. On top of that, he said, Stockholm syndrome had set in: “On the fourth day, I suddenly decided that I kind of agreed with the Republican philosophy of trickle-down economics.”

5. David Axelrod, the president’s senior adviser, was all over the Sunday talk shows, and at one point called parts of the tax deal worked out with Republicans “odious.” But speaking on ABC’s “This Week” with Christiane Amanpour, Mr. Axelrod added  “that was a part of the deal – odious though it may be – that we had to accept in order to get all the good things that come along with – that’s the nature of compromise. So I’m sure there will be some who will have a hard time getting over that hump. Others will see that this is extraordinarily important for our economy and for people across this country – that we not let this get to a Washington-style standoff.”

6. Mike Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, must get tired of being asked. But at least he’s consistent. Asked by NBC’s David Gregory on “Meet the Press,” Mr. Bloomberg said there was no way he was running for president in 2012. “No way, no how,” he said. Of course, the political pundits have never been satisfied with that answer before (especially because Mr. Bloomberg keeps giving talks that oddly resemble campaign-style speeches) so there’s no reason to think the speculation will cease.

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A lady may no longer rule the House, but the ladies will be more comfortable while there.

Speaker-designate John Boehner of Ohio plans to ask the official Architect of the Capitol to create a women’s restroom adjacent to the House of Representative’s floor in a space now occupied by the Office of the Parliamentarian. That office — the go-to spot for advice on chamber rules, precedents and practices — will be relocated to other space in the Capitol, to be named.

As it stands, only male House members have access to restrooms near the House floor, a subject of ongoing vexation among female members, who have had to amble over to the

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The new Republican majority in the House of Representatives could have considerable affect on that body’s approach to national security and foreign policy issues. Rep. John Boehner, who will become the next speaker, has promised that committee chairmen will be key to party strategy on the front lines. Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Howard P. “Buck” [...]