109th Congress / House / 1st session / Vote 296
- Question: On Passage
- Bill: H J RES 10
- Vote description: Proposing An Amendment to the Constitution of the United States Authorizing the Congress to Prohibit the Physical Desecration of the Flag of the United States
- Vote type: 2/3 Yea-and-Nay (Help)
- Result: Passed, 286-130, with 18 not voting.
- Date/time: June 22, 2005, 2:40 p.m.
- Republican majority opinion: Yes (Help)
- Democrat majority opinion: No (Help)
Key Vote Analysis
This vote approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would have given Congress the authority to ban desecration of the American flag.
The bill was defeated in the Senate on June 27, 2006, by a vote of 66 to 34. In the Senate it fell just one vote shy of the two-thirds majority required to submit the amendment to the states for ratification.
The vote on a "Flag Burning" amendment has become something of a biannual ritual on Capitol Hill since the Republicans won control in the 1994 elections (this was the sixth attempt since 1995). While support for the measure has slowly ebbed in the House (this most recent vote earned the support of 286 representatives -- down from 312 for the first effort), it has grown over time in the Senate (63 senators voted for a version of the amendment in 2000). Since supporters failed to find the sixty-seventh vote in the Senate in 2006, the proposed amendment failed to be approved by both chambers of Congress as required by the Constitution.
The proposed amendment said: "The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States." If the Senate had approved it, the amendment would have been submitted to the 50 states, with approval from 38 states needed to make it part of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court overturned a Texas law in 1989, ruling 5 to 4 that burning an American flag in protest is a form of political speech protected under the First Amendment. Congress later passed a federal anti-flag-desecration law, but the high court invalidated it on the same grounds.
The Washington Post reported that “the House measure passed 286 to 130. Republicans were almost entirely for it, 209 to 12. Democrats were not as united in their opposition, with 117 against the measure and 77 for it. "
See other key votes in the 109th Congress
