Hillary Clinton Co-Sponsored Bill In 2005 To Jail Flag Burners
PHILADELPHIA (CBS/CNN) -- President-elect Donald Trump is coming under fire that there should be "consequences" for flag burners, but in 2005, Hillary Clinton backed a bill that would have criminalized burning the American flag.
While she was senator of New York, Clinton co-sponsored the Flag Protection Act of 2005, which would have outlawed "destroying or damaging a U.S. flag with the primary purpose and intent to incite or produce imminent violence or a breach of the peace."
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"The purpose of this Act is to provide the maximum protection against the use of the flag of the United States to promote violence while respecting the liberties that it symbolizes," the bill reads.
The bill called for up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine to those found guilty of burning the flag. If one was to burn the flag on federal land, the punishment was ratcheted up to a $250,000 fine and two years in prison.
The bill did not make it out of the Judiciary Committee at the time.
On Tuesday, Trump came under fire for tweeting that there should be "consequences" for flag burners.
"Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag – if they do, there must be consequences – perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!" Trump tweeted.
The Supreme Court has twice affirmed the right to desecrate the American flag as a form of free speech -- a historically contentious issue -- in cases before the high court in 1989 and 1990.
In the 1989 case "Texas v. Johnson," the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that flag burning was a form of "symbolic speech" protected by the First Amendment. The ruling came after an appeal from Gregory Johnson, who had been convicted by a Texas court of violating a state law that prohibited the "desecration of a venerated object" such as the US flag.
The following year, in "United States v. Eichman," the top court again affirmed the right to burn the flag when it ruled 5-4 that the Flag Protection Act of 1989 -- passed by Congress in response to the Johnson decision -- was unconstitutional.
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It's not immediately clear what prompted Trump's tweet Tuesday morning, though the national discussion of respect for the flag has been restarted in part following a flag burning Nov. 10 on the campus of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, as part of a post-election protest. The university then decided to stop flying the American flag at the campus, which also infuriated some members of the community.
Steve Vladeck, CNN legal analyst and professor at the University of Texas Law School, said Trump's suggestion that citizens possibly be expatriated as a penalty is also a non-starter.
"In addition to ignoring the Supreme Court's clear teaching that flag burning is constitutionally protected speech, Mr. Trump's tweet also casually suggests that citizens should lose their citizenship as a 'penalty' for such acts," Vladeck said. "Even if flag burning wasn't protected, it would still be unconstitutional to deprive someone of their citizenship without some voluntary act on their part to renounce their allegiance to the United States or pledge fealty to a foreign sovereign."
When asked about the Supreme Court rulings on CNN's "New Day," Trump transition spokesman Jason Miller repeatedly dismissed questions about the constitutional protections of flag burning.
"Flag burning should be illegal," Miller told CNN's Chris Cuomo. "The President-elect is a very strong supporter of the First Amendment, but there's a big difference between that and burning the American flag."
But Trump's opposition to the protection of flag burning puts him at odds with conservative leaders like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, whom Trump has praised as a "brilliant Supreme Court Justice, one of the best of all time."
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told The Associated Press that Congress has no plans to take action.
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