WASHINGTON - Sen. Orrin Hatch's proposed amendment to the Constitution allowing Congress to ban desecration of the U.S. flag will be brought up in the Senate in June, setting up a dicey campaign-year debate over free speech rights.

Majority Leader Bill Frist announced Tuesday he will bring the Utah Republican's proposed amendment to the floor at the end of June, just months before voters hit the polls.

Observers say it's a tried-and-true method to boost Republicans' election prospects, and one that is needed this year as the GOP wages one of its toughest campaigns in years to keep control of Congress. Critics of the amendment, including many Democrats, say the act of burning or desecrating a flag is protected under the First Amendment.

“For the Republicans, it's a golden oldie,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. “It always works, at least in part. . . . It never loses its punch.”

Frist, a Tennessee Republican, said the proposal needs airing because the U.S. flag “honors the sacrifice of countless brave men and women who died defending our flag and the ideals it represents.”

“Our flag reminds us that there is more that unites us as Americans than divides us, and a constitutional amendment will give one of our nation's proudest and most treasured symbols the protection it deserves,” Frist said.

Hatch's proposal, which must be passed by two-thirds of the Senate and then ratified by 38 states, would not directly make it illegal to burn or desecrate the flag; it would allow Congress only to “protect” the Stars and Stripes. The House passed the proposed amendment last summer.

“I'm thrilled that the Senate will soon have the chance to restore the right of Utahns and other Americans to protect the flag,” Hatch, who is running for his sixth term, said in a statement. “The American people want this amendment, and I am hopeful that this will be the year the Senate sends it to the states for ratification.”

Hatch's office said every state has petitioned Congress to pass the amendment, but the measure has been voted on twice without success.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1990 struck down a law passed by Congress prohibiting flag desecration, saying the law suppressed free expression.

Hatch's measure has 57 co-sponsors, short of the 67 senators needed to approve it. Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, is among those who won't be voting for it.

"Senator Bennett has introduced legislation that will achieve the goal of protecting the flag, while avoiding the dangerous precedent of unnecessarily amending the Constitution,” Bennett spokesman Mary Jane Collipriest said.

Bennett's legislation would make it a crime to desecrate a flag, but it would not propose changing the Constitution.

tburr@sltrib.com