[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 124 (Thursday, September 28, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1879]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    VETERANS' MEMORIALS, BOY SCOUTS, PUBLIC SEALS, AND OTHER PUBLIC 
             EXPRESSIONS OF RELIGION PROTECTION ACT OF 2006

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                            HON. MARK UDALL

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 26, 2006

  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, I think this bill is unnecessary 
and unwise, and I cannot vote for it.
  Current law says that federal judges have discretion to require a 
state or local government to pay the attorneys' fees of individual 
citizens who win lawsuits challenging government actions that violate 
the Constitution.
  This bill would take away part of that discretion, by barring judges 
from making such awards in cases involving the Constitution's 
prohibition of the establishment of religion.
  Nothing in today's debate on the bill has convinced me that that so 
many judges have abused their discretion that Congress should limit it, 
or that the current law is broken and requires repair.
  And I am very concerned that the effect of this bill would be to 
weaken Americans' constitutional rights, as the Baptist Joint Committee 
for Religious Liberty has warned in a recent letter that says ``passage 
of H.R. 2679 would encourage elected officials to violate the 
Establishment Clause whenever they find it politically advantageous to 
do so. By limiting the remedies for a successful plaintiff, this 
measure would remove the threat that exists to ensure compliance with 
the Establishment Clause.''
  I think the Joint Committee is right--and that what they say about 
the Establishment Clause is just as true about the rest of the Bill of 
Rights.
  For example of where this might lead, consider the 2003 lawsuit 
against the school district in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
  In that case, the plaintiffs complained that a former student's right 
to free speech was abridged when school officials denied the student an 
opportunity to give her opinion of homosexuality at a school forum on 
diversity. The judge ruled they were right, and ordered the school 
district to pay damages, attorneys' fees and costs to the Thomas More 
Law Center, an Ann Arbor-based law firm organized to argue on behalf of 
Christians in religious freedom cases.
  I have no reason to think that was an abuse. I am glad that the law 
provides judges with the discretion to award attorneys' fees when 
people successfully defend their constitutional rights. This bill would 
limit that discretion unnecessarily, and so I cannot support it.

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