Anti-flag-burning amendment to US Constitution fails by a single vote

The campaign against flag-burning has long been a political hobby-horse for right-wing and chauvinist elements, going back to the Vietnam War period when antiwar protesters frequently burned flags at demonstrations against US aggression and war crimes in Southeast Asia. Numerous state laws against flag-burning were enacted in that period, but convictions under these laws were appealed on civil liberties grounds. The Supreme Court eventually ruled in 1989 that burning the flag and similar symbolic anti-patriotic acts are protected as free speech under the First Amendment.

The number of flag-burning incidents has since dwindled to almost nothing. The web site of the Citizens Flag Alliance, the well-funded lobby for the flag-burning amendment, lists a mere four cases of flag desecration this year and fifty in the past five years. Nonetheless, Republican congressional leaders have sought to keep the flag amendment alive as a political rallying point for their ultra-right base.

The House of Representatives has passed the flag amendment six times since the Republican Party took control of the lower house in 1994. Three times the amendment did not come to a vote in the Senate, and twice before the Senate rejected it, most recently in 2000, when the amendment fell four votes short. The measure was reintroduced after the Republicans gained five seats in the Senate in the 2004 election.

Since a constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority of each house, and then ratification by the state legislatures of 38 states, passage depends on substantial Democratic Party support. The House vote last year, for instance, was by a margin of 286 to 130, with more than 60 Democrats backing the amendment. All 50 state legislatures, whether Republican-controlled, Democratic-controlled or split between the parties, have adopted pro-amendment resolutions under pressure from right-wing groups and veterans’ lobbies like the American Legion.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/jun2006/flag-j30.shtml