Newdow V. Elk Grove
On June 21, 2000, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California ruled the Pledge of Allegiance constitutional in the case of Newdow v. Elk Grove Unified School District. Michael Newdow, a prominent atheist who filed suit on behalf of his daughter, promised to appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The first decision of the Ninth Circuit was handed down on June 26, 2002, declaring that the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance violated the Establishment Clause. The 'Pledge Protection Act' would be introduced into the House of Representatives for the first time on July 8, 2002, as part of the 107th Congress. Had the bill been successfully enacted into law, the decision of the Ninth Circuit would have stood, and the inclusion of "under God" in the Pledge remained unconstitutional. The law would have proscribed further appeal to the Supreme Court, but under the Ex post facto clause of the Constitution and the doctrine of the separation of powers, the law could not vacate or modify any decisions already handed down.
An attempt to challenge Newdow's standing to sue on his daughter's behalf failed in the Ninth Circuit and would be the question that would result in the entire lawsuit being vacated by the United States Supreme Court on June 14, 2004. The bill would be reintroduced again in May 2003, but no action on it would take place until September 2004, which was after the Supreme Court's ruling vacating the lawsuit.
Read more about this topic: Pledge Protection Act