Page 54 - Historical Dictionary of Political Communication in the United States

ENDORSEMENTS
from desecration as political symbols. In the 1980s a group of protesters 43
in
Texas burned a flag to protest the Reagan administration's close ties with big
American businesses. In that case, Texas v. Johnson, the U.S. Supreme court
ruled, in a 5-A decision, that a Texas appellate court's conviction of Gregory
Lee Johnson's act of "desecrating a venerated object" was unconstitutional. In
the U.S. Supreme Court's majority opinion, the state's objection was to the
message that the flag burning sent and not so much to the flag burning itself.
This distinction, in their view, was critical because the First Amendment protects
political speech, even that which is controversial or criticizes American govern-
ment.
Following the Supreme Court's decision, President George Bush picked up
flag burning as a political issue and sought an amendment to the Bill of Rights
that would overturn the Court's opinion. In 1989, Congress passed a law making
it a federal crime to destroy or mark a U.S. flag but could never reach consensus
on adding it to the Bill of Rights. In United States v. Eichman, protesters of the
federal law burned flags to show their disapproval. Again, the U.S. Supreme
Court stuck to its 5-4 vote that it was unconstitutional to ban flag burning as a
form of political protest, thus killing interest in making the issue an amendment.
SOURCES: Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 1989; United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S.
310, 1990.
Jacqueline Nash Gifford

ENDORSEMENTS. Newspapers have endorsed presidential candidates in ed-
itorials since the middle of the nineteenth century. However, there was no com-
prehensive record of those endorsements until 1940, when Editor & Publisher,
trade magazine of the newspaper industry, began polling daily newspapers about
their endorsements. Republican candidates have had more endorsements than

Percentage of U.S. Daily Newspapers Endorsing Presidential Candidates, 1940-
1996
Year Republican Democratic Uncommitted
1940 63.9 22.7 13.4
1944 60.1 22.0 17.9
1948 65.1 15.3 15.6
1952 67.3 14.5 18.2
1956 62.3 15.1 22.6
1960 57.7 16.4 25.9
1964 35.1 42.3 22.6
1968 60.8 14.0 24.0
1972 71.4 5.3 23.2
1976 62.3 12.1 25.6