S. 1913 — Ending Qualified Immunity Act

This section states congressional findings on the history of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871—including the provision now codified as section 1983, which authorizes lawsuits against persons acting under color of state law for federal rights violations without good-faith or qualified immunity defenses—the Supreme Court's development of qualified immunity through Pierson v. Ray (1967) and Harlow v. Fitzgerald (1982), and the doctrine's limitation on section 1983 damage recoveries, frustrating Congress's original intent to protect constitutional rights.

This section states the sense of Congress that Congress must correct the erroneous judicial interpretation of section 1979 of the Revised Statutes—which authorizes civil suits against state and local officials for depriving persons of constitutional rights—and restore the statute's plain text by eliminating qualified immunity defenses based on the official's good-faith belief or the right not being clearly established at the time of the violation.

This section amends the civil rights statute (42 U.S.C. 1983), which authorizes suits for damages against state and local officials who deprive persons of constitutional rights while acting under color of state law, to bar as defenses in actions pending on or filed after enactment that (1) the defendant acted in good faith; (2) the defendant believed, reasonably or otherwise, the conduct was lawful; (3) the rights violated were not clearly established; or (4) the state of the law was unclear as to the conduct's lawfulness. (Thus, the provision eliminates the qualified immunity doctrine previously shielding such officials from liability absent violation of clearly established law.)