WASHINGTON (ABP) — Angering civil libertarians and supporters of church-state separation, the House of Representatives voted July 19 to strip the federal courts of the ability to decide cases involving the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools.
The so-called “Pledge Protection Act” passed on a vote of 260-167. It echoed a similar bill the House passed by a similar margin in 2004 — the last national election year.
The measure is one of many “court-stripping” bills that House Republicans have pushed in recent years. 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 a removal of the federal courts' power to adjudicate civil-rights cases would violate the Constitution's equal-protection and due-process provisions.
Civil-liberties groups blasted the House for passing the bill, while conservative religious groups hailed the act. The head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State released a statement immediately after the vote, calling it “a disgraceful measure that jeopardizes the rights of religious minorities” and “election-year pandering at its worst.”
Meanwhile, the head of the conservative Family Research Council cited the “nearly 90 percent of Americans” who support the pledge as it is currently written and said “the threat from crusading atheists and activist judges will not cease until the Pledge Protection Act is signed into law.”
The bill is H.R. 2389.
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