Republicans Demand Fast Flag Vote and Democrats Say They’ll Get It

President Bush and Republican lawmakers, reacting to the latest Supreme Court ruling on flag desecration, demanded today that Democrats allow quick action on a constitutional amendment to restore special protection for the flag.

House Speaker Thomas S. Foley said he will allow a vote within two weeks, but added that he will break tradition to vote on the measure himself in order to emphasize his opposition to changing the First Amendment.

“Every country has a flag. We are one of the few countries that has a Bill of Rights,” the Washington Democrat said. “Efforts to politicize this issue are probably to be expected, but I don’t think they’re going to have any effect.”

GOP leaders emerged from a strategy meeting with Bush earlier today criticizing Monday’s 5-4 Supreme Court ruling striking down the federal flag protection law enacted last October.

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), pulling a small flag from his pocket, said he will press for a vote on Thursday, Flag Day.

“The Democrats should give us a very quick vote,” Dole said. “We don’t need more hearings.”

“We’re not going to do violence to the First Amendment,” the Kansas Republican said. “We’re going to protect the American flag, and I think most Americans, the real people out there, are on our side.”

Dole said he will not challenge the patriotism of lawmakers who vote against the constitutional amendment, but “I might make a 30-second spot” TV commercial.

He took a jab at Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who voted to uphold the federal law but in his dissent criticized politicians who “manipulate the symbol of national purpose . . . for partisan disputes.”

“We’re not manipulating,” Dole snapped. He said Stevens has a right to criticize politicians, “and we have a right to criticize the court, and they’re wrong.”

Bush made an issue in the 1988 campaign of his opponent Michael S. Dukakis’ veto as governor of Massachusetts of a law that would have penalized public school teachers who refused to lead the Pledge of Allegiance.

Bush went to the actual Iwo Jima Memorial in nearby Arlington, Va., last June 30 to unveil his proposed amendment, which states: “The Congress and the states shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.”

That was two days after the first Supreme Court ruling striking down state laws that made flag desecration a crime. The Senate subsequently fell 15 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass the Bush amendment. It got a bare 51-48 majority.

The Bill of Rights, comprising the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, has never been amended.

A constitutional amendment requires two-thirds majorities in both the Senate and House and approval by 38 of the 50 state legislatures.

Rep. Craig Washington (D-Tex.) said today, “We’re called upon in this body to decide what is more sacred--the Constitution or the flag. It would seem to me the Constitution is more sacred.”