I 

117TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION H. R. 1470 

To amend the Revised Statutes to remove the defense of qualified immunity 

in the case of any action under section 1979, and for other purposes. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

MARCH 1, 2021 

Ms. PRESSLEY (for herself, Mrs. BEATTY, Mr. ESPAILLAT, Ms. NORTON, Ms. 

ADAMS, Mr. GARCI ́A of Illinois, Mr. KHANNA, Ms. PINGREE, Mr. BLUMENAUER, Mr. MEEKS, Mr. LEVIN of Michigan, Ms. TLAIB, Mr. 

TAKANO, Mr. RUSH, Mrs. KIRKPATRICK, Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of 

New York, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Mr. TORRES of New York, Ms. DEGETTE, 

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia, Mr. JONES, Mr. HASTINGS, Ms. CLARK of 

Massachusetts, Ms. VELA ́ZQUEZ, Mr. GOMEZ, Ms. LEE of California, Mr. 

SMITH of Washington, Mr. MCGOVERN, Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN, Ms. 

KAPTUR, Ms. WILLIAMS of Georgia, Ms. DELBENE, Mr. MOULTON, Ms. 

BUSH, Ms. BONAMICI, Ms. JAYAPAL, and Mr. DAVID SCOTT of Georgia) 

introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the 

Judiciary 

A BILL 

To amend the Revised Statutes to remove the defense of 

qualified immunity in the case of any action under section 1979, and for other purposes. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Ending Qualified Im5 munity Act’’. 


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1 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 

2 The Congress finds as follows: 

3 (1) In 1871, Congress passed the Ku Klux 

4 Klan Act to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment and 

5 combat rampant violations of civil and constitu6 tionally secured rights across the Nation, particu7 larly those of newly freed slaves and other Black 

8 Americans in the post-Civil War South 

9 (2) Included in the Act was a provision, now 

10 codified at section 1983 of title 42, United States 

11 Code, which provides a cause of action for persons 

12 to file lawsuits against people acting under color of 

13 State law, including State or local officials, who vio14 late their Federal legal and constitutionally secured 

15 rights. 

16 (3) Under section 1979 of the Revised Statutes 

17 (42 U.S.C. 1983) a person may be held liable for 

18 acting under color of State or local law, even if they 

19 are not acting in accordance with State law. 

20 (4) Section 1979 has never included a defense 

21 or immunity for government officials who act in 

22 good faith when violating rights, nor has it ever had 

23 a defense or immunity based on whether the right 

24 was ‘‘clearly established’’ at the time of the viola25 tion. 


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1 (5) From the law’s beginning in 1871, through 

2 the 1960s, government actors were not afforded 

3 qualified immunity for violating rights. 

4 (6) In 1967, the Supreme Court in Pierson v. 

5 Ray, 386 U.S. 547, suddenly found that government 

6 actors had a good faith defense for making arrests 

7 under unconstitutional statutes based on a common 

8 law defense for the tort of false arrest. 

9 (7) The Court later extended this beyond false 

10 arrests, turning it into a general good faith defense 

11 for government officials. 

12 (8) Finally, in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 

13 800 (1982), the Court found the subjective search 

14 for good faith in the government actor unnecessary, 

15 and replaced it with an ‘‘objective reasonableness’’ 

16 standard that requires that the right be ‘‘clearly es17 tablished’’ at the time of the violation for the de18 fendant to be liable. 

19 (9) This doctrine of qualified immunity has se20 verely limited the ability of many plaintiffs to re21 cover damages under section 1983 when their rights 

22 have been violated by State and local officials. As a 

23 result, the intent of Congress in passing the law has 

24 been frustrated, and Americans’ rights secured by 


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1 the Constitution have not been appropriately pro2 tected. 

3 SEC. 3. SENSE OF THE CONGRESS. 

4 It is the sense of the Congress that we must correct 

5 the erroneous interpretation of section 1979 of the Revised 

6 Statutes which provides for qualified immunity, and reit7 erate the standard found on the face of the statute, which 

8 does not limit liability on the basis of the defendant’s good 

9 faith beliefs or on the basis that the right was not ‘‘clearly 

10 established’’ at the time of the violation. 

11 SEC. 4. REMOVAL OF QUALIFIED IMMUNITY. 

12 Section 1979 of the Revised Statutes (42 U.S.C. 

13 1983) is amended by adding at the end the following: ‘‘In 

14 any suit pending on, or filed after, the effective date of 

15 the Ending Qualified Immunity Act of 2021, it shall not 

16 be a defense or immunity to any action brought under this 

17 section that the defendant was acting in good faith, or 

18 that the defendant believed, reasonably or otherwise, that 

19 his or her conduct was lawful at the time when it was 

20 committed. Nor shall it be a defense or immunity that the 

21 rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitu22 tion or Federal laws were not clearly established at the 

23 time of their deprivation by the defendant, or that the 

24 state of the law was otherwise such that the defendant 


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1 could not reasonably have been expected to know whether 

2 his or her conduct was lawful.’’. 

Æ 


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