Pledge Protection Act gains OK in House
- Sep 30, 2004
The House of Representatives approved a bill Sept. 23 to bar federal courts from considering challenges to the Pledge of Allegiance.
The House voted 247-173 for the Pledge Protection Act, H.R. 2028. The legislation, known as a “court-stripping” measure, would remove legal challenges to the pledge’s content from the jurisdiction of all federal courts, including the Supreme Court. Instead, state courts would determine the constitutionality of the pledge within their jurisdictions.
It is unlikely the Senate will pass the bill this session. The target date for adjournment is Oct. 8.
The House vote came three months after the Supreme Court protected the phrase “under God” in the pledge without ruling on its constitutionality under the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion.
The justices unanimously agreed to overrule the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision that a California school district’s policy requiring recitation of the pledge is unconstitutional. A majority, however, based the court’s opinion on a technicality rather than a constitutional matter. The court decided atheist Michael Newdow did not have legal standing to represent his daughter in the challenge to the pledge. Newdow shares custody of the elementary-age girl with her mother, who has the final say when the parents differ.
As a result of the decision, American schools maintained the right to have the recitation of the pledge as part of their classroom practice, but the possibility exists the high court may rule in a later case that “under God” violates the establishment clause.
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