From Deseret News archives:
Flag amendment fails by 1 vote
With Utah's senators splitting their votes on the proposal, the amendment failed 66-34, just one vote shy of the two-thirds required to amend the U.S. Constitution.
The amendment would have allowed Congress to make laws banning physical desecration of the U.S. flag. Previous laws on flag-burning or other desecration were deemed unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.
"This is a setback, but it's not a final defeat," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "For protecting the Stars and Stripes, I will not give up and I will not surrender."
Hatch pushed for the amendment, emphasizing it did not ban anything but only gave Congress the power to protect the flag. Hatch and other supporters point out that 48 of the 50 states had flag-protection laws in place until the court struck them down more than a decade ago.
To amend the Constitution, the proposal had to receive at least 67 votes in the Senate and then approval from three-fourths of the states' legislatures.
The Senate's last vote on the amendment was in 2000, when it also failed.
Hatch has introduced the amendment in every session of Congress since 1995.
Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, voted against the amendment as expected but admitted he had "great personal conflict on this issue," in part because of Hatch's support for it.
"I cannot quite bring myself to amend the Constitution," Bennett said on the Senate floor.
Before the vote on the amendment itself, the Senate also rejected a bill — on a 36-64 vote — offered on the floor by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., that would have taken the place of the constitutional amendment.
Bennett supported the Durbin proposal because it included Bennett's own bill, the Flag Protection Act of 2006, and provisions that would "prohibit unapproved demonstrations at the funerals of deceased members of the armed services."
Bennett's bill would bar flag desecration "with the primary purpose and intent to incite or produce imminent violence or a breach of the peace," as well as burning an American flag "to intentionally threaten or intimidate another person." It also would ban stealing and destroying a flag owned by the federal government or on federal land.
Bennett, Durbin and the proposal's other supporters said if approved, it would be seen as constitutional — unlike a law passed in 1989 and ultimately thrown out by the Supreme Court for being too broad. Bennett's and Durbin's proposal was more "specific and clear," according to Durbin's office.
President Bush signed a law in May that prohibits demonstrations at and around national cemeteries, but Durbin's proposal would have expanded it to private cemeteries, funeral homes and houses of worship, according to his office. It does not ban all protest activities "as long as the protesters do not engage in loud behavior that disrupts the good order of the funeral," according to Durbin's office.
E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com
