The complaint was filed on behalf of the plaintiff, Arnold “Dave” Davis, by local attorney Mun Su Park, of the Law Offices of Park and Associates; J. Christian Adams, of the Election Law Center PLLC in Alexandria, Va.; and Michael E. Rosman, of the Center for Individual Rights in Washington. D.C.
Named in the lawsuit are GEC board members Alice M. Taijeron, Martha C. Ruth, Joseph F. Mesa, Johnny P. Taitano, Donald I. Weakley, and former member Joshua F. Tenorio.
The lawsuit was filed after Davis, a retired U.S. Air Force officer who has lived on Guam since 1977 and voted in many of the island’s general elections, applied to register for the plebiscite but was not allowed to sign up because he didn’t meet the definition of “native inhabitant of Guam.”
Davis informed the U.S. Department of Justice in 2009 that “Guam’s discriminatory voting laws facially violate the Voting Rights of 1965 (among other statutes).”
A news release from the Center for Individual Rights stated the Department of Justice declined to investigate and did not explain its refusal to enforce federal law in Guam, thus forcing Davis to file the lawsuit in order to protect his right to vote.
“There’s nothing subtle or indirect or even at all ambiguous about the plebiscite law. It seeks to empower fewer than 40 percent of our population to make a profoundly important political decision on a public matter that’s properly and constitutionally a right of all the people,” Davis said.
