I 
116TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 7085 
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 
JUNE 4, 2020 
Mr. AMASH (for himself, Ms. PRESSLEY, Ms. OMAR, Ms. DEGETTE, Mr. 
GARCI´A of Illinois, Mr. BLUMENAUER, Mr. MCGOVERN, Ms. PINGREE, 
Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ, Mr. ESPAILLAT, Mr. MEEKS, Ms. VELA´ZQUEZ, Ms. 
NORTON, Ms. LEE of California, Mr. TAKANO, Mr. CARSON of Indiana, 
Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York, and Mr. KENNEDY) intro-
duced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Ju-
diciary 
A BILL 
To amend the Revised Statutes to remove the defense of 
qualified immunity in the case of any action under sec-
tion 1979, and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Ending Qualified Im-
munity Act’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
The Congress finds as follows: 
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(1) In 1871, Congress passed the Ku Klux 
Klan Act to combat rampant violations of civil and 
constitutionally secured rights across the Nation, 
particularly in the post-Civil War South. 
(2) Included in the act was a provision, now 
codified at section 1983 of title 42, United States 
Code, which provides a cause of action for individ-
uals to file lawsuits against State and local officials 
who violate their legal and constitutionally secured 
rights. 
(3) Section 1983 has never included a defense 
or immunity for government officials who act in 
good faith when violating rights, nor has it ever had 
a defense or immunity based on whether the right 
was ‘‘clearly established’’ at the time of the viola-
tion. 
(4) From the law’s beginning in 1871, through 
the 1960s, government actors were not afforded 
qualified immunity for violating rights. 
(5) In 1967, the Supreme Court in Pierson v. 
Ray, 386 U.S. 547, suddenly found that government 
actors had a good faith defense for making arrests 
under unconstitutional statutes based on a common 
law defense for the tort of false arrest. 
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(6) The Court later extended this beyond false 
arrests, turning it into a general good faith defense 
for government officials. 
(7) Finally, in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 
800 (1982), the Court found the subjective search 
for good faith in the government actor unnecessary, 
and replaced it with an ‘‘objective reasonableness’’ 
standard that requires that the right be ‘‘clearly es-
tablished’’ at the time of the violation for the de-
fendant to be liable. 
(8) This doctrine of qualified immunity has se-
verely limited the ability of many plaintiffs to re-
cover damages under section 1983 when their rights 
have been violated by State and local officials. As a 
result, the intent of Congress in passing the law has 
been frustrated, and Americans’ rights secured by 
the Constitution have not been appropriately pro-
tected. 
SEC. 3. SENSE OF THE CONGRESS. 
It is the sense of the Congress that we must correct 
the erroneous interpretation of section 1983 which pro-
vides for qualified immunity, and reiterate the standard 
found on the face of the statute, which does not limit li-
ability on the basis of the defendant’s good faith beliefs 
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or on the basis that the right was not ‘‘clearly established’’ 
at the time of the violation. 
SEC. 4. REMOVAL OF QUALIFIED IMMUNITY. 
Section 1979 of the Revised Statutes (42 U.S.C. 
1983) is amended by adding at the end the following: ‘‘It 
shall not be a defense or immunity to any action brought 
under this section that the defendant was acting in good 
faith, or that the defendant believed, reasonably or other-
wise, that his or her conduct was lawful at the time when 
it was committed. Nor shall it be a defense or immunity 
that the rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the 
Constitution or laws were not clearly established at the 
time of their deprivation by the defendant, or that the 
state of the law was otherwise such that the defendant 
could not reasonably have been expected to know whether 
his or her conduct was lawful.’’. 
Æ 
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