OF the submissions to a recent newspaper forum on discrimination, not one article addressed Guam’s “elephant in the living room” — the institutional discrimination that is so rampant within GovGuam and so entangled with Guam politics.
According to the Oxford American Dictionary, the verb “to discriminate” means “to give unfair treatment, especially because of prejudice.” Discriminatory legislation on Guam is a fact, and it seems to be a product of subtle prejudice. But on Guam, it also seems to spring from our unique brand of politics.
Truth be told, the name of the game for Guam politicians is election, and to be successful in that endeavor, our politicos usually follow two strategies.
First, they will pander to a loose confederation of special interest groups including, among others, Chamorro activists, GovGuam retirees, GovGuam employees, and various other groups seeking government entitlements.
And money being the mother’s milk of political campaigns, our politicians will also cozy up to Guam’s wealthy elite. The result has been race-based and class-based legislation that would raise eyebrows in most other U.S. communities
Consider some pieces of Guam legislation that discriminate or have attempted to discriminate against outsiders. As far back as 1982, we see legislation like Article 7 of the Draft Commonwealth Act — Guam’s “unwelcome mat” put out for Filipino and Asian immigrants. Had Congress approved of Commonwealth as proposed by local politicians, immigrants on Guam would no longer have become U.S. citizens nor would they have become Guam voters.
Consider also the Chamorro Land Trust. Two court cases have shown that it violates the U.S. Constitution, yet the trust still continues and is still funded by our senators, their oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution notwithstanding. Other discriminatory legislation includes the Chamorro registry, the Chamorro-only political status plebiscite, and the Chamorro ethnicity requirement for certain GovGuam positions.
Consider also what our government has done to Guam’s working men and women: an H-2 program that depresses salaries in the skilled trades; years of withholding EITC from Guam’s working poor; a so-called “Right to Work” law which depresses Union membership and effectiveness; the absence of unemployment insurance; the misappropriation of government employee Retirement Fund contributions; and the ridiculously low salaries for government employees like teachers and nurses.
In contrast, look at what our government has done to improve the lives of our wealthy propertied elite: Qualifying tax certificates; no GRT for bankers, insurers, and retailers; one of the lowest property tax rates in the U.S.; no tap-the-rich taxation like estate taxes, intangible taxes, or luxury taxes; and the continued use of at-large voting which serves to keep working class representation out of the Legislature.
Institutional discrimination on Guam? You betcha! And if we are ever to ameliorate the situation, we must do more than face the fact that on Guam all is not sweetness and light.
For starters we can reinstate district voting in our legislative elections. Implementing this system of voting will bring political power back to the villages and diminish the power of island-wide, special interest groups. It will lessen the influence of money in elections and bring greater diversity to the Guam Legislature. And it will provide for greater accountability. An incumbent would now have to defend his or her record against the criticism of a real, flesh-and-blood opponent, something that doesn’t happen with at-large voting.
For Guam taxpayers, the “election-at-all-costs” mindset of professional politicians has become too costly, and we need to discourage political office as a life-time career. We can do this by removing some of the incentives for public office.
We can begin by ending the useless, ego-stroking trappings often associated with political office. We can remove individual staffs and budgets from our legislators. We can reduce the salaries, limit the perquisites, and end the special retirement packages granted our elected officials. And most importantly, we can impose stringent term limits on all GovGuam elective positions.
The people of Guam desperately need to change the players. We need elected officials who are genuinely concerned with Guam’s long-term future, not those who are looking down the road only so far as the next election.

PHILIP DAUTERMAN
Barrigada, Guam