[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 7115 Introduced in House (IH)]
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116th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 7115
To expand the scope of section 1979 of the Revised Statutes, and for
other purposes.
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IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
June 4, 2020
Mr. Veasey introduced the following bill; which was referred to the
Committee on the Judiciary
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A BILL
To expand the scope of section 1979 of the Revised Statutes, and for
other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Restoration of Civil Rights Act of
2019''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) Section 1 of the Act entitled ``An Act to enforce the
provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of
the United States and for other purposes'' (commonly known as
the ``Civil Rights Act of 1871''), approved April 20, 1871 (17
Stat. 13, chapter 22) was enacted by Congress to provide a
Federal forum to which a civil cause of action could be brought
by any citizen of the United States or other person within the
jurisdiction thereof, for the deprivation of any right,
privilege or immunity secured by the Constitution or by Federal
statute.
(2) Congress was granted the authority to enact the Civil
Rights Act of 1871 by sections 1 and 5 of the Fourteenth
Amendment of Constitution of the United States.
(3) Popularly known as the ``Anti-Ku Klux Klan Act'', the
statute was enacted to provide a Federal remedy to fight the
``Klan's reign of terror'' in the southern states, as reflected
in President Grant's message to Congress on March 23, 1871,
which stated that the Klan had ``render[ed] life and property
insecure'' and that the ``power to correct these evils [was]
beyond the control of state authorities''.
(4) A Joint Committee from each House of Congress addressed
the problem, and the Committee's product was the Civil Rights
Act of 1871, from which section 1979 of the Revised Statutes
was derived (42 U.S.C. 1983), which reads as follows: ``Every
person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation,
custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of
Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of
the United States or other person within the jurisdiction
thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or
immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be
liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in
equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in
any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or
omission taken in such officer's judicial capacity, injunctive
relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was
violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. For the
purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable
exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to
be a statute of the District of Columbia.''.
(5) Decisions of the United States Supreme Court, beginning
with Monell v. New York City Department of Social Services, 436
U.S. 658 (1978), have held that governmental entities are not
responsible or liable for damages caused by their agents or
employees who, in the course and scope of their employment,
violate the constitutional rights of citizens and other persons
within the jurisdiction of the United States.
(6) Decisions of the United States Supreme Court, beginning
with Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 (1982), have
established the doctrine of ``qualified immunity'', absolving
the individual wrongdoers themselves of liability for even the
most egregious violations of the Constitution unless there
exists a clearly established statutory or constitutional
precedent of which all reasonable public officials would have
known.
(7) To be a clearly established precedent, there must be a
prior case whose ``particularized facts'' clearly place the
statutory or constitutional question ``beyond debate''. White
v. Pauly, 137 S.Ct. 548, 551-52 (2017).
(8) Qualified immunity was not known at common law and has
had the effect of nullifying the right to seek redress for
constitutional violations unless a virtually identical set of
facts existed in a case previously decided that is so well-
known and recognized that no reasonable public official would
not have knowledge thereof.
(9) The failure to hold governmental entities, responsible
for the constitutional violations of their agents or employees
acting within the course and scope of their employment,
together with the qualified immunity the courts have granted
the agents and employees from personal responsibility for their
constitutional violations, deprive citizens of the United
States and other persons within its jurisdiction of an
effective remedy for the deprivation of their rights,
privileges or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws
of the United States, and specifically, drastically weaken the
remedy granted by section 1979 of the Revised Statutes (42
U.S.C. 1983), making this bill which amends the section
necessary in order to restore the purpose and intent of section
1979 of the Revised Statutes.
SEC. 6. EXPANDING CIVIL RIGHTS REMEDIES.
Section 1979 of the Revised Statutes of the United States (42
U.S.C. 1983) is amended--
(1) by inserting ``(a)'' before the first sentence; and
(2) by adding at the end the following:
``(b) Any person against whom any action, suit, or proceeding is
filed under subsection (a) for an act or omission taken in the person's
official capacity may not raise as a defense that such act or omission
did not violate a clearly established statutory or constitutional
right.
``(c) In any action, suit, or proceeding filed under subsection (a)
in which a person is held liable for an act or omission taken in the
person's official capacity, any State or Territory or the District of
Columbia, of which the person is an employee, shall be vicariously
liable for such act or omission if the act or omission of the person
are attributable to violations of the 14th Amendment by the State or
Territory or the District of Columbia, as the case may be.
``(d) Any person who is an employee or contractor of a State or
Territory or the District of Columbia and is found to be liable under
subsection (a) for acts or omissions occurring in the course and scope
of such person's employment or agreement is entitled to indemnification
by such State or Territory or the District of Columbia if the act of
omission is taken in the person's official capacity and attributable to
violations of the 14th Amendment by the State or Territory or the
District of Columbia, as the case may be.
``(e) Any United States Attorney may bring a civil action for a
violation of this section on behalf of any citizen of the United States
or other person within the jurisdiction thereof before the appropriate
Federal district court for appropriate relief.''.
SEC. 7. APPLICATION.
The amendments made by this Act shall apply to any action, suit, or
proceeding pending on the date of enactment of this Act or filed on or
after such date.
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