David Richardson to Pam Bondi: Cost of fighting equality?

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State Rep. David Richardson (D-Miami Beach) wants to know what the Sunshine State spent fighting equal marriage rights for the past several years.

Richardson wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi Thursday and asked for “a full accounting” of the amount of taxpayer money and resources her office spent on numerous appeal to prohibit gay marriage — until she gave up last month after the Supreme Court ruling that bans state bans on gay marriage. She had stopped appealing in January, when the court took up the case, in order to wait for the court’s clarification.

“We have always sought finality on this important constitutional issue, and today the U.S. Supreme Court provided the clarity our state and country was seeking,” Bondi said last week. “Legal efforts were not about personal beliefs or opinions, but rather, the rule of law.”

Richardson does not sound very forgiving.

“For far too long, your office has appealed the decisions from judges who ruled in favor of marriage equality,” Richardson wrote Bondi on Thursday. “If your office had not continuously fought those rulings in appellate courts, gay people could have married earlier in Florida.

“Other Attorneys General, like Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, chose a different path — to not defend their state’s bans o same-sex marriage,” he added, referring to Bondi’s excuse that she was just defending the state’s ban, which was adopted by voters in 2008.

“I am hearing from many constituents who are upset that scarce and valuable state resources were wasted. My constituents want answers,” Richardson wrote. “I am herein requesting a full accounting of the amount of taxpayer money and resources spent defending the state’s ban on gay marriage. Please produce all records, including time sheets or summaries, outside counsel bills, invoices and other documents that detail the amount of time and money spent litigating this issue.

“Do not offer ‘attorney work product’ as an excuse for denying records, as the matter is now settled law,” Richardson wrote.

He posted the letter on Facebook and said the funds “could have been used to educate our children or feed the hungry.”

Richardson also told his “friends” he’d keep us posted on the answer.

Ladra bets its in the millions.

  David Richardson, marriage equality, Pam Bondi