WASHINGTON (ABP) — A House panel has unexpectedly killed a bill designed to remove the jurisdiction of the federal courts over cases involving the Pledge of Allegiance.
The House Judiciary Committee deadlocked 15-15 on the so-called “Pledge Protection Act” June 28. A tie means the bill does not move forward. One conservative member of the majority-Republican panel, South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis, joined 14 Democrats to vote down the proposal.
Several Republicans did not show up for the committee's vote on the bill, and Inglis has reportedly declined to agree to a new vote.
A similar bill passed the House in 2004, and was expected to pass the body again in this election cycle. The Senate did not consider the 2004 bill and is not expected to consider the latest version.
Religious Right groups have claimed the bill is necessary to keep the words “under God” from being removed from the pledge. Although they were not part of the original 1892 version of the oath, Congress added them in 1954 as an act of anti-communism.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals originally ordered the words removed from the pledge in 2002 and said their recitation in public schools violates the First Amendment's guarantees for religious freedom. After a public backlash, the appeals later backtracked on the removal of the words, but maintained their ruling that public-school teachers should not lead students in reciting the oath.
The Supreme Court overturned that decision.
But conservatives have said the pledge is still at risk from lawsuits like the one that inspired the 9th Circuit decision. The bill relies on a hotly debated section of the Constitution that supporters say allows Congress to remove federal courts' jurisdiction over any matter it chooses.
Many legal experts have debated that conclusion, saying removing the federal courts' power to adjudicate civil-rights cases would violate the Constitution's equal-protection and due-process provisions.
According to a press release from his office, Inglis changed his mind on the bill because “citizens deserve the full protection of the Constitution and a fully empowered federal court system to protect those rights. Inglis also said that passing such a “court-stripping” bill, as they are sometimes called, would lead Congress down a slippery slope.
“A liberal congress might someday try to strip the courts of the right to hear cases claiming other constitutional claims — the right to protest at abortion clinics or the right to distribute Gospel tracts, for example,” he said.
The bill is H.R. 2389.
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