BEVERLY, MASS., AUG. 23 -- Last week, Democratic presidential nominee Michael S. Dukakis took flak at the Republican National Convention for vetoing a 1977 state bill that would have required teachers to lead schoolchildren in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Today, he returned the fire.
Massachusetts Gov. Dukakis said the issue was not whether he supports reciting the pledge -- he said he does -- but whether a chief executive of a state or nation knowingly would sign an unconstitutional bill into law.
"If the vice president is saying he'd sign an unconstitutional bill, then in my judgment he's not fit to hold the office {of president}," Dukakis said in a question-and-answer session today with reporters and editors from northeastern Massachusetts newspapers.
In his acceptance speech last week, Republican presidential nominee George Bush asked rhetorically: "Should public school teachers be required to lead our children in the Pledge of Allegiance? My opponent says no -- but I say yes." Several speakers at the convention raised the pledge issue in a way that suggested they saw it as a matter of patriotism, and Vice President Bush closed his speech by leading the Republicans in the New Orleans Superdome in reciting the pledge.
Dukakis said the issue is not loyalty to country, but fealty to law, and said the GOP was deliberately trying to confuse the two. "I encourage children to say the Pledge of Allegiance," he said. "I say the Pledge of Allegiance. That's not the issue, and the Republicans know it."
Dukakis said that when the state legislature passed a bill in 1977 that would have imposed penalties on school teachers who refused to lead children in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, he sought an advisory opinion from his Supreme Judicial Court, the highest court in Massachusetts, and the state attorney general.
Both said the bill was unconstitutional, Dukakis said, basing their advisory opinions on a 1943 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, which said that schoolchildren could not be penalized for refusing to swear an oath of allegiance. "The flag-salute cases are studied by every first-year law student," Dukakis noted.
"If the vice president is saying that if he were president, and the United States Supreme Court said a law was unconstitutional and the attorney general said the law was unconstitutional, and he'd sign it anyway, then that raises very serious questions about what it means to take the oath of office . . . . I can't imagine a president of the United States who knows a law is unconstitutional, proceeding to sign it."
He added: "The highest form of patriotism is a dedication and a commitment to the Constitution of the United States and the rule of law."
After Dukakis vetoed the state bill in 1977, the legislature overrode his veto. At that point, the state commissioner of education received a ruling from the state attorney general that the measure was unenforceable. So it remains on the books in this state, but it has never been enforced, and Dukakis called it a "nullity."
The nominee spent the day in his state, touring dropout prevention and antidrug and worker-training programs. He issued a statement applauding the signing of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness law as "a very important step forward in the road to a competitive Amercia" and saying that he is "particularly proud" of his running mate, Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (Tex.), for steering the measure through the Senate.
Asked about national polls taken after the GOP convention that show he has fallen behind Bush, Dukakis said: "I get a bounce. They get a bounce. I think we'll also see a lot of bounces out there."