As the media freaks out over Donald Trump’s latest tweet, this one on criminalizing the burning of the American flag, here’s something you probably won’t read a lot about: Hillary Clinton agrees with the president-elect (or at least she used to):
One final thing on popularity of anti-flag-burning laws. Hillary Clinton SPONSORED one in 2005 that featured a one-year prison sentence.
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 29, 2016
Again, that was a terrible position to take. But you can’t fight this bad idea unless you understand that it’s popular, and bipartisan.
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 29, 2016
https://twitter.com/Itsjoeco/status/803585651169955840
More from the New York Times editors in 2005:
Hillary Clinton is co-sponsoring a bill to criminalize the burning of the American flag. Her supporters would characterize this as an attempt to find a middle way between those who believe that flag-burning is constitutionally protected free speech and those who want to ban it, even if it takes a constitutional amendment. Unfortunately, it looks to us more like a simple attempt to have it both ways.
Senator Clinton says she opposes a constitutional amendment to outlaw flag-burning. In 1989, the Supreme Court ruled that flag-burning was protected by the First Amendment. But her bill, which is sponsored by Senator Robert Bennett, Republican of Utah, is clearly intended to put the issue back before the current, more conservative, Supreme Court in hopes of getting a turnaround.
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