Although the Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. Johnson (1989) that flag-burning was protected by the First Amendment, the bill was intended, according to The New York Times, to take the issue back to the Supreme Court, which was more conservative in 2005 than it was in 1989, in order to overturn that earlier decision.
In a reversal of fortune, the Supreme Court's ruling in Texas v. Johnson (1989) safeguarded flag-burning under the First Amendment, but a bill sought, as reported by The New York Times, to revisit the issue before a potentially more conservative Supreme Court in 2005, which would have overturned that earlier verdict.