No Attorney Fees for Defending the 1st

Amendment that is. I prefer to keep national issues over at my Live Journal community, but this is just too much.

I found this House Bill - H.R. 2679 after reading this Washington Post commentary be Erwin Chemerinsky, which was posted today. Basically, if this bill passes the Senate (the House went for it) and makes its way to the President's desk, you will be on your own in filing and prosecuting a violation of the First Amendment. If you win the case you won't get attorneys' fees for it, which apparently is NOT the norm. According to Chemerinsky;

A federal statute, 42 United States Code section 1988, provides that attorneys are entitled to recover compensation for their fees if they successfully represent a plaintiff asserting a violation of his or her constitutional or civil rights.

The plain language of H.R. 2679 states:

SEC. 3. LIMITATIONS ON CERTAIN LAWSUITS AGAINST THE UNITED STATES AND FEDERAL OFFICIALS.

(a) In General- Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a court shall not award reasonable fees and expenses of attorneys to the prevailing party on a claim of injury consisting of the violation of a prohibition in the Constitution against the establishment of religion brought against the United States or any agency or any official of the United States acting in his or her official capacity in any court having jurisdiction over such claim, and the remedies with respect to such a claim shall be limited to injunctive and declaratory relief.

According to the Post Chemerinsky is the Alston & Bird Professor of Law and Political Science, at Duke University. So this is not some wingnut protesting, although some might argue he is just another attorney trying to protect an income source. His parting shot at the end of the article:

The passage of this bill by the House is a disturbing achievement by those who seek to undermine our nation's commitment to fundamental freedoms laid out in the Constitution......The religious right is looking for a way to get away with violating the Establishment Clause and is now one step closer to this goal.

Can it get any more blatant than this?

ETA: Evidently Thomas doesn't keep search results alive indefinitely. But you can search by Bill Number at the home page, so if you input H.R. 2679 you will get 3 responses, 2 from 2005. Take the 3rd one, it's from 2006 and is the relevant bill.