Pete Sessions: “the amendment we are debating is short and to the point. It contains only 17 words: Congress shall have the power to…”

“the amendment we are debating is short and to the point. It contains only 17 words: Congress shall have the power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States. We are discussing this today because in 1989, in Texas v. Johnson, five members of the Supreme Court held that flag desecration-- specifically burning the American flag--was a form of first amendment- protected speech and Texas's law banning desecration of the flag was unconstitutional. Adding insult to injury, when Congress passed the Flag Protection Act of 1989, codified as title 18, section 700 of the United States Code, five members of the Supreme Court struck down that law as unconstitutional, too, in United States v. Eichman, 1990. I believe the amendment we are considering today is entirely appropriate, and I am proud to cosponsor it. I wish to respond briefly to some of the criticism I have heard. Some would say: Well, you want to limit free speech when you want to stop burning the flag. Now, it is true that the Supreme Court, by a 5-to-4 majority, held that the act of burning a flag is free speech. Well, I don't agree. The Supreme Court for a long time has allowed reasonable ``time, place, and manner'' restrictions on speech. Moreover, the Supreme Court has long recognized that: [t]here are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem.…”