
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, June 8, 1995                   TAG: 9506090042
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JIM ABRAMS Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

HOUSE PANEL PASSES FLAG AMENDMENT

A constitutional amendment restoring to the states and Congress the authority to ban desecration of the American flag was sent Wednesday to the full House.

The House Judiciary Committee approved the amendment on a party-line vote of 18-12. It would override a 1989 Supreme Court ruling that threw out state laws prohibiting flag burning and other acts of desecration, saying they violated First Amendment guarantees of freedom of expression.

Democrats on the committee, who unanimously opposed the measure, echoed that concern.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke voted for the amendment. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, voted against it, but offered legislation to make flag-burning illegal. "Constitutional scholars," Boucher said, "have assured me that my legislation would pass Constitutional muster and achieve the same effect as a flag burning amendment."

Rep. John Conyers, Jr., of Michigan, the committee's ranking Democrat, said, ``We're going to the heart and soul of the right of the freedom of expression as protected in the Constitution.''

But Republicans said the flag, as the binding symbol of the nation, must be protected by law. ``As tombstones are not for toppling, nor churches not for vandalizing, flags are not for burning,'' said committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill.

The amendment is scheduled to reach the House floor in late June, becoming the third attempt by the Republican majority in this Congress to amend the Constitution.

The balanced-budget amendment passed the House but fell one vote short in the Senate, while an amendment limiting the terms of members of Congress failed in the House.

by CNB