Nowhere in the ruling was considered the prohibition against persons of NMI descent to sell land to whomever they choose, the equal protection deprivations inherent to such a prohibition, or the detriment thereby inflicted upon those persons of NMI descent. Those persons of NMI descent can not sell to whomever they want. And so their sale market is limited solely to others of NMI descent. Meaning they must sell if at all to the local realty-royalty oligarchs of NMI descent — we know who they are — for the pittance they offer to pay while facing no free market competition other than fellow realty-royalists. Ask the ordinary citizenry of NMI descent facing imminent foreclosure at the hands of CNMI governmental institutions about this, and see how they feel.
Nowhere in the ruling was considered the present CNMI economic and political conditions which so markedly differ from the 1990 conditions. Nor was there contested by the litigants the justification for the Article XII restrictions given those conditions. Were these factors then and now relevant? In the 9th Circuit’s words: “The importance of the constitutional right at stake makes it essential that a decision … rest on a solid understanding of [present conditions in the [CNMI]”.
Nowhere in the ruling was highlighted that in the not so distant future — a future hair-trigger-close-today — this Article XII discrimination might by will of the CNMI electorate itself be tossed out, absent frustration of CNMI-federal mutual interests but, rather, in furtherance of those interests.
Nowhere in the ruling was considered the prospect, ultimately borne out, that CNMI legislators would contrive Senate Legislative Initiative 11-1 restricting, solely to persons of NMI descent, the ability to vote on issues pertaining to Article XII; that the CNMI Senate and House would pass this discriminatory voting scheme on 11/13/98 and 6/24/99, respectively; that an electorate ill-served and woefully uninformed by its ostensible legislative leadership would ratify by 11/6/99 electoral ballot this unlawfully discriminatory measure yet on the books today; or, that given the opportunity, the U.S. Supreme Court in Rice v. Cayetano, 528 U.S. 495 (2000), would strike down with vehemence such racist/blood quotient voting abominations in the Hawaiian motif seemingly adulated, and so oft emulated, by today’s CNMI Apartheidentia.
And nowhere in the ruling did any equal protection analysis or decision transpire, the court leaving this analysis to conditions not present in 1990 but so profoundly germane to the CNMI’s dismal circumstances today.
Of perhaps equal note, the Ninth Circuit Court was not and will not hold final sway respecting Article XII race-based discrimination. As evinced most recently, matters of equal rights to which all in the CNMI are entitled may be litigated in the U.S. Courts in Washington D.C…the same courts in which CNMI officials themselves have opted so recently to fund anti-U.S. litigation, at inordinate CNMI taxpayer expense, unequivocally detrimental from any rational standpoint to those taxpayers themselves.
Beyond the realm of court opinions, lurks also the cognizance of absurdity here — given the irrefutable fact, that is, that U.S. race-based legislative/judicial equality designs were conceived under mindset of protecting minority interests (like those of African Americans) from overwhelming majority electoral control (like that of Caucasian Americans)…while, by contrast, the CNMI’s race based schemes have been designed and perpetuated with overt intent to promote the interests of the persons-of-NMI-descent-majority (like those of Chamorro/Carolinian ancestry) while protection of their fellow-American minorities’ equal protection rights is neither pretended nor seemingly conceivable to this majority’s elected and self-professed community leaderships.
Of course, lacking restraint, this inequity has become ever pervasive in the CNMI, creeping from Article XII restrictions years ago, to voting rights restrictions, and perhaps more noticeably on to the realm of race-based entitlements (for the NMI descent majority), and race-based discrimination (against non-NMI-descent-Americans), in facets ranging from governmental loans, to off-island medical referrals and the homestead program (through which, of course, U.S. taxpayers fund infrastructure in CNMI homestead communities founded and perpetuated on the notion of discriminatory, race-based, land-acquisition-for-free-with-ownership for the majority populace of NMI descent).
Now, some profess this duality is not intentional discrimination but, rather, a vital mechanism by which to facilitate closely knit communities of like-cultured-persons.
Nothing new here. This notion was earlier propounded by those in places like Mississippi/Arkansas of the 1950’s who advocated “separate but equal” restaurant and educational facilities — divided, that is, by skin color.
Not dissimilarly, this notion was also propounded by those in places like New York and Pennsylvania of the 1960’s who advocated restricted club memberships and lakeside communities — admission/ownership, that is, exclusively by religious denomination.
As for the absurd fallacy of supposedly inalienable rights having been wickedly usurped by Uncle Sam, there comes to mind the Ninth Circuit opinion above-described — in which the court recognized that pursuant to the Covenant, the CNMI became “politically united with and “under the sovereignty of the United States of America.”
A perhaps consistent view, as spoken by a friend of Hawaiian ancestry: “Eh, brah — if you can spell ‘sovereignty’ you can have it!”
Of prospective further insight, a quick read of the Covenant preamble comes to mind — that portion which states: “WHEREAS, for over twenty years, the people of the Northern Mariana Islands, through public petition and referendum have clearly expressed their desire for political union with the United States…”
Respecting the notion that U.S. voting rights are not dependent on paying U.S. income taxes, well perhaps some extrapolation is in order: if you live in the U.S. and you don’t pay your taxes, you go to jail as a felon; and felons serving time in jail can’t vote; and, in more than one state, this voting restriction becomes permanent, even after release from prison. 8th grade social studies…Mr. Cromie.
As for political-wanna-bes (and ghostwriters) inclined to feigned, indignant, umbrage —e.g., denouncing as somehow “divisive” the phrase “real American” — well, Gosh-golly-gee-willickers-Mr. Ziffel!
Is the phrase “real American” termed “divisive” only when penned for newspaper publication by a U.S. citizen of non-NMI-descent?
After all, that phrase originated, by way of the letter-to-the-editor bearing Mr. Jesse Torres’s name. As explicitly referenced in the follow-up letter bearing Aspirant CNMI Politico Aquino’s name.
BRUCE L. JORGENSEN
Washington, D.C.
