Senate panel backs amendment on flag

WASHINGTON — A Senate panel on Thursday advanced a proposed constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration, a measure with little chance of congressional passage but potential political impact in an election year.

Approved 6-3 by a Judiciary Committee panel on the Constitution, the amendment reads: "The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States."

The House already has passed the amendment. Just bringing up the measure scores points with conservative voters who are crucial to the Republicans' plans to keep control of the House and Senate.

But the 17-word amendment faces high procedural and constitutional hurdles.

"The purpose of the amendment is simple," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "It restores the right of the American people, through their elected representatives, to protect the flag from desecration. Prior to a series of misguided Supreme Court decisions, this was a right that Americans have always had."

The 58 Senate co-sponsors are nine short of the two-thirds majority required to send constitutional amendments to the states, where approval by three-fourths of the state legislatures is needed for ratification.

The Supreme Court in 1989 issued the first of two 5-4 decisions declaring that flag desecration amounts to free speech protected by the First Amendment. Free speech groups say a constitutional prohibition on flag burning would be censorship.

"The First Amendment must be protected most when it comes to unpopular speech," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's legislative office in Washington. "Failure to do so fails the very notion of freedom of expression."

Supporters say the states should have the right to decide.

"By passing this amendment, we give to the American people an opportunity to act in their full sovereign capacity," Hatch said. "And if the amendment is ratified, any law that congress passes to protect the flag will be written by legislators who are responsible to their constituents. We live in a democracy. This amendment enables democratic action."

The flag measure is one of several constitutional amendments Republican leaders are advancing to energize conservative voters even though none of them is likely to clear the Senate. Others include outlawing abortion and banning same-sex marriage.