Absent DOMA, the outcome of these cases would depend on (1) whether a court construed the particular federal statute to authorize benefits for same-sex couples married under state law and (2) whether the court determined that the couple in question was married under state law.
The jobless can now call a computerized system that allows officials to retrieve tax records and authorize benefit checks to be mailed.
Most commonly, the payer is either acting in bad faith by trying to reverse a transaction that they knowingly authorized and benefitted from, or acting in good faith, and is a victim of legitimate fraud.
Congressional efforts to authorize drug benefits as an integral part of Medicare have sputtered since Sept. 11, when concern about terrorism swept aside other issues on the domestic policy agenda.
In 1990, what started as an addition of 13 weeks was later expanded to 26 weeks, with some states authorized to pay benefits for an extra 33 weeks.
Opponents of the laws, however, are skeptical about how much good they do and critical of the notion that people in the country illegally should be allowed state-authorized benefits.
Perhaps these risks would be tolerable if the standard drug benefit authorized by the bills were generous.
State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, who lives in Westchester and is chairman of the Assembly committee that authorized the public benefit corporations, opposes downsizing the health care agencies.
The question in the case was whether Congress had authorized that cost-benefit approach in the Clean Water Act, which requires cooling water intake structures to "reflect the best technology available for minimizing adverse environmental impact".
Pacific Council is one of a handful of non-governmental organizations that have been authorized, for the benefit of the public and the Commissions process, to send representatives to observe the controversial proceedings at Guantánamo, which are impossible to witness firsthand without government invitation.
By signing the measure, the Mychal Judge Act, Mr. Bush authorized the paying of benefits to the domestic partners of officers killed in the Sept. 11 attacks who did not have a legally recognized spouse, son, daughter or parent.
