Attorney Ken Starr represents Arizona in the ELL case. He is shown in this AP file photo as he departs his McLean, Va., home after a jury in Little Rock, Ark., acquitted Susan McDougal of obstructing justice in the Whitewater investigation.

The Arizona House of Representatives is using its own cash reserve to pay the $910-an-hour legal fees of a prominent attorney who is defending the Legislature’s interest in a case that will appear before the United States Supreme Court this spring.
The House has paid $200,000 from its operating account to hire attorney Ken Starr, who is best known for leading the congressional investigation that ultimately led the U.S. House to impeach President Bill Clinton. In all, Starr’s firm has billed the state for $406,545 for work in 2008.
The state’s Risk Management division has paid about $247,000 of the firm’s expenses.
Starr is representing the House and Senate in their bid to overturn lower court rulings obligating Arizona to spend more money to teach English to students who primarily speak a foreign language.
Last year, leaders in the House tried to use money from the reserve fund, which showed a $9 million surplus, to pay for two school voucher programs. But that effort proved unsuccessful when the state Attorney General’s Office determined the money could not be used for that purpose because it would be considered an appropriation that would have to be voted upon by the entire Legislature.
Although some of that excess money has been spent since then and $4 million was used to bridge a deep budget deficit late last month, several million dollars remain available.
Lawmakers were forced to pay much of Starr’s fee because the state’s Department of Administration said it would only pay $335 an hour for outside counsel. The House has paid for the remaining $575-an-hour to Los Angeles law firm Kirkland & Ellis in the form of two retainers, one last July and another in December.
Both $100,000 payments were authorized by Jodi Jerich, who at the time was chief of staff for former House Speaker Jim Weiers. It’s not clear how much of the money on retainer was left unspent.
House Republican spokeswoman Becky Blackburn said both the House and Senate were splitting the costs for Starr’s representation, but her Senate counterpart said the House is shouldering the entire load.
“As of yet, the Senate has not paid anything,” said Senate GOP spokeswoman Laura Devany.
Republican lawmakers used Starr’s fee as justification for rejecting an attempt by Democrats to sweep an additional $3 million from the House’s fund during a debate over the fiscal 2009 budget revisions.
House Speaker Kirk Adams was optimistic the legal fees would pay off for the state, as a victory in the Supreme Court would prevent Arizona from paying hundreds of millions of dollars to teach English to students whose primary language is not English.
“We’ve got a case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court — only 1 percent of cases ever get there, and we have a good chance of winning it,” he said.