Senate to Debate Flag Amendment
The Senate is scheduled to take up a constitutional amendment this week that would prohibit the desecration and destruction of the American flag. In order to pass, two-thirds of the United States Senate must vote in favor of the measure. That will not be the end of the legal and political aspects of the amendment. In order to become a binding constitutional amendment, three-fourths of the states38must ratify it to become law. Fifty state legislatures have already endorsed a flag amendment in nonbinding resolutions, so this should move very quickly through the various state legislatures it passed. Our Office of Government Affairs has been working aggressively on this issue over the last couple of weeks.
The 28th Amendment would read as follows:
The Congress shall have the power to prohibit the physical desecration
of the flag of the
It will take 67 Senators to approve the constitutional amendment. Currently, the flag amendment is supported by 66 Senators, including 14 Democrats. It is unclear at this point whether there is the crucial 67th vote that would put this measure to the states. The House of Representatives approved the amendment 286 to 130 last year. Our Government Affairs office is working on shoring up the 67th vote for this amendment.
We will keep everyone posted as this issue continues to progress through the United States Senate this week.
