The recent passage of H.R. 3940 would authorize the Department of the Interior to extend technical assistance grants and other forms of help to facilitate a political status public education program for Guam, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
You will be asked to fund voter education for Guam in preparation for a political status plebiscite. It might be useful for you to know that such plebiscites were scheduled in Guam law five times between 1998 and 2005 and canceled each time by the Guam Legislature.
While federal funding of the voter education process would ordinarily be viewed as a good thing by the people of the Territories, there are constitutionality issues associated with extending such aid to the government of Guam. To do so would constitute overt support of a racially discriminatory process.
Under current Guam law the majority of registered voter citizens are barred from participation in any plebiscite dealing with political status preference. Guam Public Law 25-106 extends that privilege only to those identifiable through ethnic and/or ancestral tracings, in direct conflict with the Organic Act of Guam and the 15th Constitutional Amendment. This provision is locally known as “the Chamorro-only vote” and it, or its equivalent, has been rejected by every U.S. administration and Congress over several decades. The following contradictory excerpts are from current Guam law and the Organic Act of Guam.
From Guam P.L. 25-106:
“In recognition of your right to self-determination, which of the following political status options do you favor? (mark only one):
1. Independence ( )
2. Free Association ( )
3. Statehood ( )
“Persons eligible to vote shall include those persons designated as Native Inhabitants of Guam, defined within Chapter 21 of Title 3 of the Guam Code Annotated, as enacted in this Act, who are eighteen (18) years of age or older on the date of the Political Status Plebiscite, and are registered voters on Guam”.
“’Native Inhabitants of Guam’ shall mean those persons who became U.S. citizens by virtue of the authority and enactment of the 1950 Organic Act of Guam and descendants of those persons.”
From the Organic Act of Guam:
Paragraph 1421b, Bill of Rights, subparagraph (m): “No qualification with respect to property, income, political opinion, or any other matter apart from citizenship, civil capacity, and residence shall be imposed upon any voter.”
The following subparagraph, (n), states:
“No discrimination shall be made in Guam against any person on account of race, language, or religion, nor shall the equal protection of the laws be denied.”
Hawaii’s 1999 US Supreme Court “Rice v. Cayetano” case is the definitive, landmark reference for the ancestral voter qualification issue. I urge you to thoroughly revue legal implications before committing financial support to Guam for self-determination voter education, as it would be available and useful to relatively few Guam residents.
DAVE DAVIS
Yigo, Guam
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