
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 23, 1990                   TAG: 9003232721
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/3   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

FOLEY SAYS COURT REQUEST NOT POLITICAL

House Speaker Thomas S. Foley says he sought to delay Supreme Court review of the federal flag-burning law so the House could better defend it, not to deny Republican candidates an issue this fall.

"I emphatically state that there was no political motive . . . in the filing of this brief other than to undertake the fullest defense of a statute of this House," the Washington Democrat said Thursday in an unusual speech on the House floor by a speaker.

Foley spoke after an embarrassing loss to his chamber's Republican minority. In a 309-101 vote, the House ordered its legal counsel to withdraw a Foley-supported legal brief asking the high court to delay review of the flag-burning law until October.

If successful, that probably would take the flag issue, a GOP favorite, out of the campaign leading up to the November elections.

House Republican leader Robert Michel complained that he found out about the brief only after it was filed and said "this is part of a pattern . . . (of) insufficient consultation."

Michel, R-Ill., said the brief misrepresented explicit language included in the legislation last year that calls for expedited review of any constitutional challenge. He offered a resolution chastising the House counsel and calling for withdrawal of the brief.

And after other Republicans cast the issue as one of which party is better at protecting the flag, dozens of Democrats deserted their leadership to hand Foley his defeat.

- Associated Press

by CNB