The Pledge of Allegiance is the surprise issue of the 1988 presidential campaign. But more noteworthy even than the intensity of the extravagant rhetoric is the persistent falsification of the facts by liberal circling the wagons to defend Michael Dukakis.
National news media, including the CBS-TV Evening News, have stated repeatedly that the now-controversial Massachusetts law required students to pledge allegiance to the flag, and they assert that this would be unconstitutional under a 1943 U.S. Supreme Court decision. That is simply not true.
What happened was that in 1977 the Massachusetts legislature passed a one-sentence amendment stating: “Each teacher at the commencement of the first class of each day in all grades in all public schools shall lead the class in a group rectification of the ‘Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.’”
That’s all. The Massachusetts bill did not require the students to do anything at all, and it did not impose any penalties on anyone.
Expressing his displeasure with this bill, Governor Michael Dukakis then solicited an advisory opinion from the Massachusetts Supreme court. Five of the judges (three of whom had been appointed by Dukakis) wrote that the bill was unconstitutional, but they admitted that the U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on this issue. The other two judges wrote that the Massachusetts law meets every constitutional standard.
Dukakis then vetoed the bill. The Massachusetts legislature responded by overriding his veto by overwhelming margins: 201 to 27 in the House and 24 to 7 in the Senate. Following the House override, the legislators rose and sang God Bless America.
This 1977 law is still on the books. Dukakis never enforced it, and it has never been challenged.
Dukakis and his liberal friends, both in his campaign and in the media, are now crying around that criticisms of his actions are “negative campaigning,” “McCarthyism,” “garbage,” and “attacking my patriotism.” Dukakis doth protest too much, methinks. The record of a candidate’s official actions in public office are the most pertinent matters to discuss in any campaign.
George Bush didn’t question Dukakis’s patriotism or motives. With precise accuracy, Bush just pointed to the record and questioned Dukakis’s judgement in taking a specific action as Governor of Massachusetts.
Dukakis, however, did make a dishonorable attack on George Bush by accusing him of being “not fit” to be President because he would have signed an “unconstitutional” bill. That is an example of “negative” campaigning and rhetorical “garbage.”
The Massachusetts law is not unconstitutional, and five state judges giving an advisory opinion cannot make it so. That’s only their opinion and, fortunately, neither candidate Bush not President Bush need accept their gratuitous advice.
The U.S. Supreme Court case cited by Dukakis’s friends, the 1943 case of West Virginia v. Barnette, held that it was unconstitutional to compel a Jehovah’s Witness child to salute the flag under penalty of expulsion from the public schools followed by prosecution for truancy. The Massachusetts law is very different; it merely requires teacher to lead the Pledge of Allegiance, but does not impose any penalties and does not require students to do anything.
That is a constitutional difference. The teachers are taxpayer-paid employees, and the state has the right to impose conditions of employment on them.
The U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t give “advisory opinions” and it is always hazardous to predict that the Court will do when confronted with a new fact situation. But there is ample reason to believe that the high Court would uphold the Massachusetts law if it had the chance.
In a 1979 case, the high Court upheld a New York law forbidding the employment of teachers who are eligible for citizenship but refuse to seek naturalization. In 1964, the Supreme Court refused to review a 1957 New York court decision that it is constitutional to require teachers to lead the pledge so long as there is no penalty for students who refuse to recite it.
Dukakis voluntarily chose to veto the 1977 Pledge of Allegiance bill, and now he is hiding behind judicial robes that have no force of law whose advice he didn’t have to solicit in the first place. Once the law has passed over his veto, he had the obligation to enforce it, which he did not do.
It is certainly fair comment for George Bush to cite the record and to say that, giving the same circumstances, he would have signed the bill so that schoolchildren can be led in the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. It is not fair comment for Dukakis to hurl epithets at Bush for discussing and differing with Dukakis’s record.
