I 
116TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 7115 
To expand the scope of section 1979 of the Revised Statutes, and for other 
purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JUNE 4, 2020 
Mr. VEASEY introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on the Judiciary 
A BILL 
To expand the scope of section 1979 of the Revised Statutes, 
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 ‘‘Restoration of Civil 
Rights Act of 2019’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) Section 1 of the Act entitled ‘‘An Act to en-
force the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment 
to the Constitution of the United States and for 
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other purposes’’ (commonly known as the ‘‘Civil 
Rights Act of 1871’’), approved April 20, 1871 (17 
Stat. 13, chapter 22) was enacted by Congress to 
provide a Federal forum to which a civil cause of ac-
tion could be brought by any citizen of the United 
States or other person within the jurisdiction there-
of, for the deprivation of any right, privilege or im-
munity secured by the Constitution or by Federal 
statute. 
(2) Congress was granted the authority to enact 
the Civil Rights Act of 1871 by sections 1 and 5 of 
the Fourteenth Amendment of Constitution of the 
United States. 
(3) Popularly known as the ‘‘Anti-Ku Klux 
Klan Act’’, the statute was enacted to provide a 
Federal remedy to fight the ‘‘Klan’s reign of terror’’ 
in the southern states, as reflected in President 
Grant’s message to Congress on March 23, 1871, 
which stated that the Klan had ‘‘render[ed] life and 
property insecure’’ and that the ‘‘power to correct 
these evils [was] beyond the control of state authori-
ties’’. 
(4) A Joint Committee from each House of 
Congress addressed the problem, and the Commit-
tee’s product was the Civil Rights Act of 1871, from 
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which section 1979 of the Revised Statutes was de-
rived (42 U.S.C. 1983), which reads as follows: 
‘‘Every person who, under color of any statute, ordi-
nance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or 
Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or 
causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United 
States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof 
to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immu-
nities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be 
liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit 
in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, ex-
cept that in any action brought against a judicial of-
ficer for an act or omission taken in such officer’s 
judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be grant-
ed unless a declaratory decree was violated or de-
claratory relief was unavailable. For the purposes of 
this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclu-
sively to the District of Columbia shall be considered 
to be a statute of the District of Columbia.’’. 
(5) Decisions of the United States Supreme 
Court, beginning with Monell v. New York City De-
partment of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), 
have held that governmental entities are not respon-
sible or liable for damages caused by their agents or 
employees who, in the course and scope of their em-
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ployment, violate the constitutional rights of citizens 
and other persons within the jurisdiction of the 
United States. 
(6) Decisions of the United States Supreme 
Court, beginning with Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 
U.S. 800 (1982), have established the doctrine of 
‘‘qualified immunity’’, absolving the individual 
wrongdoers themselves of liability for even the most 
egregious violations of the Constitution unless there 
exists a clearly established statutory or constitu-
tional precedent of which all reasonable public offi-
cials would have known. 
(7) To be a clearly established precedent, there 
must be a prior case whose ‘‘particularized facts’’ 
clearly place the statutory or constitutional question 
‘‘beyond debate’’. White v. Pauly, 137 S.Ct. 548, 
551–52 (2017). 
(8) Qualified immunity was not known at com-
mon law and has had the effect of nullifying the 
right to seek redress for constitutional violations un-
less a virtually identical set of facts existed in a case 
previously decided that is so well-known and recog-
nized that no reasonable public official would not 
have knowledge thereof. 
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(9) The failure to hold governmental entities, 
responsible for the constitutional violations of their 
agents or employees acting within the course and 
scope of their employment, together with the quali-
fied immunity the courts have granted the agents 
and employees from personal responsibility for their 
constitutional violations, deprive citizens of the 
United States and other persons within its jurisdic-
tion of an effective remedy for the deprivation of 
their rights, privileges or immunities secured by the 
Constitution and laws of the United States, and spe-
cifically, drastically weaken the remedy granted by 
section 1979 of the Revised Statutes (42 U.S.C. 
1983), making this bill which amends the section 
necessary in order to restore the purpose and intent 
of section 1979 of the Revised Statutes. 
SEC. 6. EXPANDING CIVIL RIGHTS REMEDIES. 
Section 1979 of the Revised Statutes of the United 
States (42 U.S.C. 1983) is amended— 
(1) by inserting ‘‘(a)’’ before the first sentence; 
and 
(2) by adding at the end the following: 
‘‘(b) Any person against whom any action, suit, or 
proceeding is filed under subsection (a) for an act or omis-
sion taken in the person’s official capacity may not raise 
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as a defense that such act or omission did not violate a 
clearly established statutory or constitutional right. 
‘‘(c) In any action, suit, or proceeding filed under 
subsection (a) in which a person is held liable for an act 
or omission taken in the person’s official capacity, any 
State or Territory or the District of Columbia, of which 
the person is an employee, shall be vicariously liable for 
such act or omission if the act or omission of the person 
are attributable to violations of the 14th Amendment by 
the State or Territory or the District of Columbia, as the 
case may be. 
‘‘(d) Any person who is an employee or contractor 
of a State or Territory or the District of Columbia and 
is found to be liable under subsection (a) for acts or omis-
sions occurring in the course and scope of such person’s 
employment or agreement is entitled to indemnification by 
such State or Territory or the District of Columbia if the 
act of omission is taken in the person’s official capacity 
and attributable to violations of the 14th Amendment by 
the State or Territory or the District of Columbia, as the 
case may be. 
‘‘(e) Any United States Attorney may bring a civil 
action for a violation of this section on behalf of any cit-
izen of the United States or other person within the juris-
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diction thereof before the appropriate Federal district 
court for appropriate relief.’’. 
SEC. 7. APPLICATION. 
The amendments made by this Act shall apply to any 
action, suit, or proceeding pending on the date of enact-
ment of this Act or filed on or after such date. 
Æ 
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