Right to Democracy’s Adi Roman, left, speaks at a community presentation on Tuesday. Joining her on stage is former Rep. Sheila Babauta.
AT a community presentation on Tuesday, Nov. 19 at American Memorial Park’s indoor theater, Adi Roman, Right to Democracy co-founder, spoke about why the organization seeks to overturn the Insular Cases and how their work relates to the CNMI.
According to their website, Right to Democracy’s goals include addressing “125 years of colonialism and undemocratic governance in U.S. territories.”
They seek to overrule the Insular Cases, which are a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions from the early 1900s that granted full constitutional rights to “incorporated” territories of the United States. Like Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the CNMI is an “unincorporated” territory of the United States.
In their report, “Building a Movement: Democracy, equity and self-determination in U.S. Territories,” Right to Democracy stated that the U.S. has “cloaked its colonial reality” and is “denying democracy” to its island territories.
At her presentation on Tuesday, Roman said Right to Democracy is working to “confront” and “dismantle” colonial frameworks across all three branches of the federal government.
At the judicial level, Roman said that would mean confronting the legal doctrine established by the Insular Cases. In the U.S. Congress, Right to Democracy seeks the condemnation of America’s “colonial framework.” At the executive level, Right to Democracy hopes a sitting U.S. president will come to realize that “colonial [decision-making]” does not bring solutions to the territories.
However, Roman said, “Right to Democracy is not pushing for … any type of result [in] … each territory.”
She mentioned her native Puerto Rico where political status is a topic of contention.
“What we’re saying is not that pro-statehood or pro-independence or freely associated state is the best solution [for Puerto Rico]. What we’re saying is the fact that we haven’t been able to decide it in 125 years is the problem,” she said.
Roman said under the Insular Cases, the U.S. Congress has “unilateral power” over its territories. The judicial system has protected this power, leaving the territories with reduced political agency, she said.
“This is what is shared with all of us — we don’t have a seat in the government, but we also don’t have a seat internationally. It is a framework that creates [a state of] limbo in terms of our political participation, and our agency to affect [decision-making] on the things that are affecting us,” she said.
During the presentation, former Rep. Sheila Babauta, the evening’s emcee, asked Roman to address the local perception that dismantling the Insular Cases would threaten the CNMI’s Covenant with the U.S.
Babauta serves on Right to Democracy’s advisory board.
Local attorney Joseph Horey has said that the Insular Cases “are the legal foundation of Article XII and the Commonwealth Senate, thus of the entire U.S.-CNMI Covenant. Overturning them would invite a constitutional crisis in the CNMI.”
Roman said across all territories, she has encountered a “fear of change,” which she called normal.
“What would happen if we break this relationship? Like any toxic relationship it is difficult. When we are engaging in the territories where the Insular Cases are seen as a way of protection of certain fundamental rights in the territories, we are very conscious about that fear,” she said. “But we are also very emphatic … that that law is actually being used by … the supreme institution of the land to always protect the unilateral power of Congress over local actions or to push [against] local government.”
