[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 107 (Wednesday, June 28, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H6436-H6439]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           MOTION TO RECOMMIT OFFERED BY MR. BRYANT OF TEXAS

  Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Speaker, as the minority leader's designee, 
I offer a motion to recommit with instructions.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman opposed to the joint 
resolution?
  Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Yes, I am, Mr. Speaker.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to recommit 
with instructions.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Bryant of Texas moves to recommit the joint resolution, 
     H.J. Res. 79, to the Committee on the Judiciary with 
     instructions to report the same back to the House forthwith 
     with the following amendment:
       Strike all after the resolving clause and insert the 
     following:
     That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the 
     Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to 
     all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when 
     ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several 
     States within seven years after the date of its submission 
     for ratification:

                              ``Article--

       ``Section 1. The Congress and the States shall have power 
     to prohibit the burning, trampling, soiling, or rending of 
     the flag of the United States.
       ``Section 2. For the purpose of this article of amendment, 
     the Congress shall determine by law what constitutes the flag 
     of the United States, and shall prescribe procedures for the 
     proper disposal of a flag.''.

                              {time}  1400

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Oxley). Pursuant to House Resolution 
173, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bryant] and the gentleman from New 
York [Mr. Solomon] will each be recognized for 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bryant].
  Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would dearly love to be freed at this moment from any 
restraints of conscience so that I could simply content myself with a 
sincere speech about my love of this country and this flag and then go 
on my way because life would certainly be more simple for me and for 
many others who have spoken here today if we did that, but the fact of 
the matter is, if we love this country, if we truly want to be patriots 
who bear responsibility for the future of our people, and, after all, 
they are this country, we have the obligation to legislate for the long 
run in a way that is workable and in a way that protects them from 
accidentally getting in trouble and in a way that protects the things 
that we hold dear insofar as possible.
  The fact of the matter is that in haste to bring this bill to the 
floor in time to precede the July Fourth recess the bill that has been 
brought to us today is one that I think bore a great deal more study 
and a great deal more consideration than it received. Why is that? 
Because either inadvertently or perhaps on purpose the way this current 
provision is written, Mr. Speaker, it allows 52 different definitions 
of what the flag is and 52 different definitions of what desecration of 
the flag is.
  Well, I submit to my colleagues that the polls that I have heard the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon] make reference to during this 
debate, that the American people are for a prohibition on burning the 
flag, certainly would not be the same if they knew it was going to be 
50 different laws and 50 different definitions of the flag; 52 that is. 
Surely, if there is anything that is within the province and 
responsibility of this Congress, it is defining what is an American 
flag. That should not be subject to 52 different definitions, and 
surely if we are going to deal with this problem in a way that goes as 
far as possible to avoid limiting freedom of speech and to avoid 
accidental prosecutions and accidental crossing of the 

[[Page H6437]]
legal prohibitions, it is our job to write a single statute, a Federal 
statute, to govern the question of what is desecration of the flag.
  I asked during the course of the debate in the Committee on the 
Judiciary of the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady], who is the 
chairman of the subcommittee with jurisdiction, what would happen if a
 State said that a flag has 49 stars, or 48 stars, or a flag is green, 
and yellow, and blue instead of red, white, and blue, and the answer 
that I received was, ``Well, it is up to the States. It depends on what 
the States do.'' That is not an outcome that befits a Congress that is 
supposed to be handling with extreme care and reverence the 
Constitution of the United States and the best interests of the people 
that sent us here.

  The motion to recommit is in effect an amendment to this bill, this 
resolution. It says quite simply that Congress and the States shall 
have power to prohibit the burning, trampling, soiling, or rending of 
the flag of the United States, and for purposes of this article the 
Congress shall determine by law what constitutes the flag and shall 
prescribe procedures for the proper disposal of the flag. That, if we 
are going to pass a constitutional amendment, is what the public would 
have in mind. That is something that tells people what is the flag, 
what is the law, and where is the line which one cannot cross.
  I simply submit to the many Republicans, as well as Democrats who 
stood up today and spoke for this, that this is what they had in mind, 
not the provision that was hastily brought to the floor today in order 
to get here before the July Fourth recess and perhaps permit the 
delivery of many inspriational speeches with a slight political 
overtone over this coming holiday. How are we serving the interests of 
this country if we handle this in a way that is designed to meet our 
political needs rather than handling it in a judicious way that is 
designed to protect the interests of the public?
  I submit the motion to recommit is constructive, it deals with the 
problem that has been articulated by the authors of the amendment in a 
way and in a way that tells the American people what is permitted and 
is not permitted.
  Finally I would say this: You have made much of how important it is 
to prohibit anyone from desecrating the flag, but your proposal would 
allow States to permit the desecration of a flag because all 50 states 
can do what they want to do in terms of defining desecration and 
defining the flag. This proposal, this motion to recommit, says that 
the Congress defines the flag and the Congress defines desecration. If 
we are to take this monumental move, action, if we're to amend the most 
sacred civil document of this land, surely we ought to do it in a way 
that is constructive and it serves the interests of the people.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, first of all let me just say to Members on both sides of 
the aisle that reasonable men and women can disagree with each other, 
and certainly there is a reasonable disagreement on this issue. I 
respect those on both sides of the aisle regardless of what their 
opinion is, and I am sure that they are sincere, and I do not think 
that any of us are any more patriotic or any more standing up for the 
flag than the other. It is a question of a difference of opinion, and, 
because of that, I rise in opposition to the alternative for two basic 
reasons.
  One, Mr. Speaker, is because it changes the wording of the language 
recommended by 49 States of the United States of America, and more than 
three-quarters of these States have memorialized this Congress to pass 
this exact language.
  Now all of the State's attorneys in those States, whether it is Ohio, 
yours, Mr. Speaker, or Texas, or New York, they have looked at the 
language in House Joint Resolution 79, as have all of the veterans' 
organizations, as have many of the constitutional lawyers around this 
country. They have said that this language is the language we should 
adopt.
  Now, if we change it, then it is going to cause a problem. We know 
now that these 49 States would almost immediately, within the first 
year that their legislatures go back into session, we know that they 
would ratify the language in House Joint Resolution 79. That means 
within 2 years we are going to settle this issue one way or the other. 
It would not be like the equal rights amendment that went for 7 years 
and then failed. If we pass this exact language, then we are assured 
that we are going to protect that flag and we are going to do it in a 
very short period of time.
  Now, second reason:
  It is because I do not believe that the sponsors, not this gentleman 
here, but those who appeared before my Committee on Rules upstairs 
yesterday, I do not believe that they are going to vote for this 
gentleman's substitute. As a matter of fact, those who came to testify, 
and the gentleman was not one of them, those that came to testify said 
they would not vote for it even if we made it in order.
  Now that brings a problem to us because it again, once again, just 
clouds the issue. I say to my
 colleagues, ``If you recall last time, we passed a constitutional--or 
we tried to pass a constitutional amendment, but we ought to in tandem 
try to pass a statute, and many Members said, `no, I'm going to vote 
against the constitutional amendment because we can vote for the 
statute, and that will take care of it,' and we failed. We failed by 
about 34 votes.''

  My colleagues, we cannot fail today. We have tried it. The courts 
have said nothing is going to stand short of a constitutional 
amendment, and what we are simply doing is putting the constitution 
back to where it was prior to 1989 and how it stood for 200 years.
  My good friend from Texas worries about the possibility that States 
might permit the desecration of the flag. Now I just have to take 
exception to that. In 200 years of the history of this country not one 
State did that. I mean after all, Mr. Speaker, we are people of common 
sense in this country.
  Mr. Speaker, those are the reasons we need to defeat this alternative 
that is being offered and pass the constitutional amendment 
overwhelmingly supported by the American people.
  Again, Mr. Speaker, I have the highest regard for the gentleman. 
There is not one Member of this House, whether liberal or conservative, 
that I dislike, or question, or impugn their integrity. They are all 
ladies and gentlemen that are highly respected in the eyes of this 
gentleman anyway.
  Mr. HEFNER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SOLOMON. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.
  Mr. HEFNER. I just want to ask a question.
  I plan to vote for the amendment, but there is something that has 
been bothering me. I realize that the States will set whatever the 
penalty is, but jut say that someone is here on the Capitol Grounds in 
the District, here on the Capitol Grounds, and they burn a flag. Now 
what would be the penalty?
  Mr. SOLOMON. There would not be any penalty unless this Congress----
  Mr. HEFNER. Say it passes, it is ratified. What would be the penalty? 
What would be the Federal penalty if it happened in front of the 
Capitol?
  Mr. SOLOMON. There would be no penalty unless the Congress takes 
action. The District of Columbia is not a State. This Congress must 
pass a statute, which we will do, the gentleman and I will do it 
together, and we will define the U.S. Flag Code, and what constitutes a 
flag, and what is a criminal offense; we will do that once this 
amendment has been ratified.
  Mr. HEFNER. If the gentleman would continue to yield, because I read 
here the Congress and the States shall have the power to prohibit the 
physical desecration of the flag of the United States, and we cannot 
very well prohibit it, but what I am trying to get at is are we going 
to pass a statute here or are we going to have a law that it is a 
Federal crime, a Federal crime, to desecrate the flag and what penalty 
would it carry if someone desecrated the flag on the steps of the 
Capitol? What penalty would he have to pay? We have to have something.
  Mr. SOLOMON. That is going to be up for debate on this floor. I hope 
the gentleman is back here next year if this is ratified as quickly as 
I think it will be. We ought to take this up on the floor and establish 
what constitutes an illegal activity as far as the 

[[Page H6438]]
flag is concerned and what criminal penalty goes with it. That is up 
for this Congress to do, but do it by statute. All this amendment does 
is speak to the principle and allow, as the gentleman repeated, the 
States and/or the Congress to enact a statute which would provide for a 
legal penalty for physically desecrating the flag.
  Mr. HEFNER. Would the gentleman continue to yield?
  Mr. SOLOMON. I am running out of my time over here.
  Mr. HEFNER. But the gentleman would anticipate that once this is 
passed by all the States, and I am assuming that it would happen fairly 
quickly, that they would set their penalties, and we would set one 
penalty, it would be a Federal offense if it took place here in the 
front of the Capitol, and there would be some penalty for desecration 
of the flag. If not, it is pretty meaningless to have it.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Well, yes, sir, and I would hope that this Congress 
would do it before any of the States do it so that we could give them a 
sample to go back to what we believe it should be. They would not have 
to follow it because in some States, like in your State of North 
Carolina, they may want a very, very stiff penalty. In my State of New 
York, sometimes they are a little questionable with their enforcement 
of the laws; right, Mr. Ackerman? And so it might be a lesser penalty; 
I don't know. But again that is up to the States.
  Mr. HEFNER. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  I would like to ask the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon] if he 
would respond to me; he was good enough to yield me his time a moment 
ago. I ask Mr. Solomon from New York if I could have his attention for 
a question.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Excuse me. I was distracted over here by one of our 
Texas colleagues.
  Mr. BRYANT of Texas. I understand.
  Mr. SOLOMON. They are everywhere you turn.
  Mr. BRYANT of Texas. That is as it should be.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Almost as bad as Californians.
  Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Mr. Solomon, I am sure--I appreciate the 
gentleman's statement of his belief and sincerity of all parties in 
this debate, and I certainly say to the gentleman that those are my 
feelings in return. In the substitute which I have offered in the form 
of a motion to recommit we have provided that the Congress and the 
States shall have the power to prohibit the burning, trampling, soiling 
or rending of the flag of the United States. What else do you want to 
prohibit other than those four things?
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Bryant, I do not know what the interpretation of 
rending of the flag might be.
  Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Tearing.
  Mr. SOLOMON. There are a lot of other things. Is punching a hole in 
the flag? I do not know.

                              {time}  1415

  What I am saying is that we want it to be a statement of principle, 
and then let this Congress make that decision, or let your State of 
Texas make that decision as to what the physical desecration of that 
flag would be.
  Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Do you think my State should be able, for 
example, to prohibit someone from wearing the flag on the back of their 
jacket if they are a Member of an Olympic team? Should the State be 
allowed to prohibit that?
  Mr. SOLOMON. No, and I do not think that they will.
  Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Do you think the States should be allowed to 
prohibit the Olympic team from wearing a flag on the back of their 
athletic jacket?
  Mr. SOLOMON. No, and I do not think they will.
  Mr. BRYANT of Texas. Under the terms of your language, that could be 
defined as physical desecration. That is the whole point of my 
substitute.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Let me tell the gentleman something: I have the greatest 
respect for your State legislature in Texas.
  Mr. BRYANT of Texas. How about the one in New York?
  Mr. SOLOMON. They are going to define a flag according to the U.S. 
flag code. Some articles of clothing are not a flag, and neither is a 
picture of it on a T-shirt. I have no concerns about that.
  Mr. BRYANT of Texas. If I might ask the gentleman another question, 
do you not think it just logical that the flag of the United States 
would be defined by the Congress of the United States, not by the New 
York legislature, or the Texas legislature, or California or 
Massachusetts? One definition of what the flag is? Doesn't that just 
stand to reason that would make more sense?
  Mr. SOLOMON. Yes, and we have a flag now; I think it needs refining 
and defining. I intend to work with that gentleman and to try to do 
that.
  Mr. BRYANT of Texas. But your proposal allows 50 States to define the 
flag any way they want to. You brought it out here so quickly, you 
overlooked that. That is the point.
  Mr. SOLOMON. I would say to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bryant] 
that I am 64 years old, and I have looked at all of these statutes. I 
have not found one State that abused it, not one, in 200 years of this 
country's history.
  Mr. BRYANT of Texas. I doubt if you looked at all of them. None of 
the rest of us have either. But for you to state a State can never 
abuse it. A State, as I said under your definition, could permit the 
desecration of the flag, whereas we are saying it is going to be a 
Federal statute.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Does the gentleman think his State of Texas is going to 
abuse it?
  Mr. BRYANT of Texas. No, but I am not so sure about the gentleman's 
State of New York.
  Mr. SOLOMON. I do not think my State of New York would do it.
  Mr. BRYANT of Texas. I hope the gentleman is right.
  Mr. SOLOMON. I do not think any State would do it, not even Vermont, 
which happens to be the only State that actually passed a resolution 
saying they did not want this amendment.
  Mr. BRYANT of Texas. I hope the gentleman is right. But the reason we 
write constitutional amendments is because of the assumption that 
somewhere down the line, somebody is going to get off tract, and abuse 
what we put into the Constitution, unless we write it carefully. This 
proposal to this motion to recommit is a careful writing of something 
which you all hustled out here in a big hurry, because you wanted to 
get out of here ahead of the July 4 recess.
  Vote for something reasonable. You are going to have what you want. 
You will be able to prohibit the desecration of the flag. But we are 
not going to threaten the American people with accidental prosecution.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 9 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. 
Ackerman].
  (Mr. ACKERMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am a bit old-fashioned. I love our 
country. I love our Constitution. I even love a parade. I love our 
flag. I am an Eagle Scout who still gets a tingle down my spine when 
Old Glory goes by. I do not understand and I disapprove of those 
misguided people who would desecrate that in which we all believe.
  The question is, how should we as American patriots respond? Do we, 
like Voltaire, disagree with what they say, but loving freedom so much 
defend their right to do so? Or do we do like a despot, who, when 
offended, seeks to put an end to the activities of those who offend 
them?
  Why should we as Americans act? Is the threat so great? Is our 
society grinding to a halt? Are our constituents jumping out from 
behind parked cars, waiving flags, and burning them at us so we cannot 
get to work? Is there a left-leaning radical court giving solace to our 
enemies? Or is it a blue, white, and red herring to use our beloved 
national symbol as a partisan pawn by petty politicians for their 
personal partisan purposes?
  And what is the flag, and why do I love it? The flag is not our way 
of life. The flag is a symbol. It is a symbol of our country, of our 
value system, a symbol of the things in which we believe. And high 
among those beliefs is the right to disagree and the right to protest, 
the same right currently in each and every one of our 50 States.

[[Page H6439]]

  Let me correct a misconception. Nobody died for the flag. They died 
for what it stands for. No American mother gave up her son for a piece 
of cloth. The sacrifice was made for our way of life. It did not cost 
us a sea of blood and thousands of lives for a flag that costs each of 
us $7.97 a copy in the office supply store downstairs. Americans did 
not sacrifice and bleed and die for a piece of cloth, but rather for 
what it symbolizes.
  And what does it symbolize? It symbolizes the greatest experiment in 
democracy and individual rights in the history of this planet. It 
symbolizes a country that is different, because people, indispensable 
and disagreeable people, have a right to protest, to protest to 
Congress, to protest against Congress, to protest against you and me, 
to protest against their Government, their President, their 
Constitution, and, yes, even against their flag.
  This proposed amendment says that 50 States can pass 50 different 
flag desecration amendments. The motion to recommit corrects that. 
Imagine 50 different definitions of desecration. Is it a tearing in 
Montana? It will be. Will it be burning in Mississippi? How about 
soiling in New Jersey, or cursing at the flag in Utah?
  Imagine 50 different State definitions of the flag itself. Is it 
cloth? How about a paper flag? Could it be unconstitutional to burn a 
tablecloth that looks like a flag? How about ripping up a photograph of 
a flag, destroying a symbol of a symbol? Take away that right, and you 
have diminished us all.
  Is a flag anything with stars and stripes? If it has 70 stars and 12 
stripes, have you burned a U.S. flag, or can you get off the hook? It 
will be different in each of 50 States. How about if it is orange, 
white, and blue? We can have people making them for the purpose of 
burning. If that is the case, do you beat the rap?
  The Constitution is supposed to protect your rights, not your 
sensitivities. Take away that right, and you are changing what the flag 
symbolizes, for the first time in American history, reducing 
constitutional rights. Pass the amendment as it is
 without the motion to recommit, and what will it mean? The answer will 
be different in 50 different States. Let us take a look at what it 
might mean.

  America's First Ladies, most of them, all truly patriots, have worn 
American flag kerchiefs. Are they desecrators? A patriotic gesture, you 
say? How about an ugly Democrat wearing a flag hat in some State that 
does not like the idea? Or an uglier flag hat, or an uglier flag hat?
  How about a bathing suit made out of the Stars and Stripes, is that 
desecration? Maybe in one State it is, and another State it will not 
be.
  It goes further. Where does it offend you? How about pantyhose made 
out of the flag? Stars down one side, stripes down the other leg.
  I will spare you the things that personally offend me. How about 
children who desecrate? Wearing silly flag ears? Or flag pinwheels? Or 
filling the flag up with hot air? Can you try these children as if they 
were adult desecrators?
  How about American flag napkins? If you blow your nose in one, have 
you broken the law? Violating the Constitution is nothing to sneeze at. 
And how about American flag plates? If you put your spaghetti in it, do 
you go to the can? How about a flag bag? Have you violated the 
Constitution if you fill it with garbage and then throw it out? Each 
State could have a different answer.
  Do we raid factories that make things such as George and Barbara 
slippers out of flags? Do we just arrest the people who make them or 
the people who put their feet in them? Do you throw them all in jail?
  How about flag socks? There are ugly ones, and there are cute ones. 
Do you violate the flag when you make them, when you buy them, when you 
wear them? Does it matter if your feet are clean or dirty? And what 
happens if different States make different statutes? Do you have to 
check your socks at the border? And what happens to you if you burn 
your socks?
  Disposable flashlights. Can you dispose of them or do you have to 
give them a decent burial when the battery dies? Suspenders. Does that 
get you a suspended sentence in one State and live sentence in another? 
And your mother's admonition to wear clean underwear will have new 
meaning when it comes from your lawyer.
  I do not mean to trivialize the flag, Mr. Speaker. Americans love and 
respect our flag. But we do not want to worship it. It is not a 
religious relic that once destroyed exists no more. It is not the 
physical embodiment of our value system that once gone can no longer 
be. It is only a copy. The fabric of our beliefs are woven into our 
society and guaranteed by our Constitution, and that which is a symbol 
of our beliefs is not so fragile as to be endangered by matches or 
desecrators or even trivializers.
  Desecrators cannot destroy the flag, Mr. Speaker. They have tried. 
They have burnt it, they have soiled it, they have torn it, but they 
have not destroyed it.
  Turn around, Mr. Speaker. There it is, right in back of you. You 
cannot destroy a symbol, unless you destroy that which it represents. I 
urge our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, do not destroy what our flag 
represents. Do not destroy what our flag represents. Please, do not 
destroy that which our flag represents.


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