The Nation - News from July 19, 1989

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) introduced a constitutional amendment, supported by President Bush, that would bar burning of the U.S. flag. Dole belittled an idea, championed by Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), that the way to overcome a Supreme Court decision allowing flag burning was a statute satisfying the court’s concerns about free speech rights. Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said he thought a constitutional amendment was “the only sound and safe way” to protect the flag. But Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), a Vietnam War veteran and Medal of Honor winner, said lawmakers were jumping too quickly to protect the flag in order to gain political capital.