[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1913 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
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119th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 1913
To amend the Revised Statutes to remove the defense of qualified
immunity in the case of any action under section 1979, and for other
purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
May 22, 2025
Mr. Markey (for himself, Ms. Warren, and Mr. Sanders) introduced the
following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on
the Judiciary
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To amend the Revised Statutes to remove the defense of qualified
immunity in the case of any action under section 1979, 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 ``Ending Qualified Immunity Act''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) Congress passed the Act of April 20, 1871 (commonly
known as the ``Ku Klux Klan Act''; 17 Stat. 13, chapter 22) to
enforce the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States and combat rampant violations of civil and
constitutionally secured rights across the United States,
particularly those of newly freed slaves and other Black people
in the post-Civil War South.
(2) Included in that Act was a provision, now codified at
section 1979 of the Revised Statues (in this section referred
to as ``section 1983''), which provides a cause of action for
individuals to file lawsuits against persons acting under color
of law, including State and local officials, who violate their
Federal legal and constitutionally secured rights.
(3) Under section 1983 a person may be held liable for
acting under color of State law, even if they are not acting in
accordance with State law.
(4) Section 1983 has never included a defense or immunity
for government officials who act in good faith when violating
rights, nor has it ever had a defense or immunity based on
whether the right was ``clearly established'' at the time of
the violation.
(5) From 1871 through the 1960s, government actors were not
afforded qualified immunity for violating rights.
(6) The Supreme Court of the United States in Pierson v.
Ray, 386 U.S. 547 (1967), found that government actors had a
good-faith defense for making arrests under unconstitutional
statutes based on a common-law defense for the tort of false
arrest.
(7) The Supreme Court of the United States later extended
the good-faith defense beyond false arrests, turning it into a
general good-faith defense for government officials.
(8) Finally, in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 (1982),
the Supreme Court of the United States found the subjective
search for good faith in the government actor unnecessary, and
replaced it with an ``objective reasonableness'' standard that
requires that the right be ``clearly established'' at the time
of the violation for the defendant to be liable.
(9) The doctrine of qualified immunity has severely limited
the ability of many plaintiffs to recover damages under section
1983 when their rights have been violated by State and local
officials.
(10) As a result, the intent of Congress in passing section
1983 has been frustrated, and the rights secured by the
Constitution of the United States have not been appropriately
protected.
SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS.
It is the sense of Congress that Congress must correct the
erroneous interpretation of section 1979 of the Revised Statutes that
provides for qualified immunity and reiterate the standard found on the
face of the statute, which does not limit liability on the basis of the
good-faith belief of the defendant or on the basis that the right was
not ``clearly established'' at the time of the violation.
SEC. 4. REMOVAL OF QUALIFIED IMMUNITY.
Section 1979 of the Revised Statutes (42 U.S.C. 1983) is amended--
(1) by inserting ``(a)'' before ``Every person''; and
(2) by adding at the end the following:
``(b) It shall not be a defense to any action pending on, or filed
after, the date of enactment of this subsection that, at the time of
the deprivation--
``(1) the defendant was acting in good faith;
``(2) the defendant believed, reasonably or otherwise, that
his or her conduct was lawful;
``(3) the rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the
Constitution and laws were not clearly established; or
``(4) the state of the law was such that the defendant
could not reasonably have been expected to know whether his or
her conduct was lawful.''.
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