Amendment Banning Flag-Burning Fails in Senate By One Vote

A constitutional amendment that would ban flag-burning or any other desecration of the American flag fell one vote short of the two-thirds needed to pass the Senate yesterday (June 27th). The House had gotten more than the two-thirds required with a 286-130 vote last year, and if the Senate had passed the President Bush-backed amendment, it would have gone to the states for ratification. The 66-34 vote came after two days of debate on the proposed amendment, which was first proposed in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling in 1989 and 1990 that flag burning and other desecration of the flag is protected free speech. The last time the Senate considered the amendment, in 2000, it fell four votes short.

Amendment opponents said that not matter how distasteful they found burning the flag, banning it would violate the First Amendment. Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, a World War Two Medal of Honor winner, said, "While I take offense at disrespect to the flag, I nonetheless believe it is my continued duty as a veteran, as an American citizen, and as a United States senator to defend the constitutional right of protesters to use the flag in nonviolent speech." Some Democrats also complained that the congressional Republican majority had brought up this issue now for political purposes ahead of the midterm elections this fall.