WASHINGTON — The stage is set for the final, deciding fight over Sen. Orrin Hatch's proposed constitutional amendment to ban desecration of the U.S. flag.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, which Hatch chairs, endorsed his amendment on an 11-7 vote Tuesday and sent it to the full Senate. Hatch earlier pushed it through that panel's Constitution subcommittee on a slim 5-4 vote. The House passed it 300-125 last year.

Ratification requires passing both houses by two-thirds majorities and then adoption by three-fourths of the state legislatures.

Hatch predicts a tough battle in the full Senate, but expressed high hopes for the elusive victory he has sought since 1989 when the Supreme Court ruled flag burning is a protected form of free speech.

"I think we really have an opportunity to get the 67 votes necessary to pass the constitutional amendment," Hatch said. "We have a number of new Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, and I believe the odds are that we may be able to get the votes necessary."

Hatch has come within three votes of passage twice. One Republican Hatch has never won over is Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah. He was one of four Republicans who voted against the amendment the last time the Senate considered it in 2000. Had Hatch won their support, it would have passed. The House has passed it five times.

Bennett told the Senate in 2000 that if Hatch's amendment ever passes, "The words will lie there. I don't think they will make much difference (to stop flag burners), but they will be there as a symbol of our willingness to overturn more than 200 years of tradition with respect to individual rights as outlined in the First Amendment."

Many Democrats on the Judiciary Committee expressed similar sentiments Tuesday.

"Whatever the political cost, I will defend the right of Americans to express their views about their government, however hateful or spiteful or disrespectful they may be, without fear of their government putting them in jail," said Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., ranking Democrat on the committee, said the amendment amounts to trying to teach a lesson, punishable by law, on how to treat the flag. "That may be necessary in Saddam Hussein's Iraq or in Stalin's Soviet Union or in Castro's Cuba but not in America," he said.

Hatch said, "I don't consider defecating or urinating on the flag as examples of (protected) First Amendment speech. I consider it conduct. I think the vast majority of Americans do as well."

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., added, "We don't say you can't speak against the flag. We say you can't desecrate the flag."

Feingold predicted Hatch lacks the votes to win in the full Senate, "so this is a political exercise in an election year." Leahy agreed, saying, "The Constitution is being misused for partisan purposes."

Hatch bristled at that charge. "I do particularly resent the comments that this is just a political exercise because there are a lot of sincere people who believe that a constitutional amendment is the only way to redeem this situation. And it is bipartisan."

Hatch's top cosponsor, for example, is Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

Of note, Sen. John Edwards, the Democratic vice presidential nominee and a committee member, did not attend the meeting Tuesday, but Leahy cast his vote by proxy against the amendment.

---

E-mail: lee@desnews.com