Guam in the News

Periodically, COTTonLINE notes happenings on the U.S. island of Guam. It's the southernmost island in the Marianas and the only island in that chain not a part of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands. The DrsC spent a fascinating year on Guam in the mid-1980s.

What caught our eye is Power Line's Paul Mirengoff posting about the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit meeting in Guam yesterday for the first time since 2002. The case, Davis v. Guam, concerns whether a racial requirement for voting on a plebiscite is lawful.

Mr. Davis, a resident of Guam, attempted to register to vote in a plebiscite on Guam’s relationship to the United States. He was denied permission to register because he could not trace his ancestry to a native inhabitant of Guam.

Guam law allows only those with correct ancestry to vote in the future status plebiscite. Guam has effectively conditioned the right to vote in its plebiscite on race.

Guam tried to defend its race-based voting requirement on the theory that Guam represents a special case because its native population was never polled as to whether it wanted to become part of the United States.

One hopes the court sides with Davis. As an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" and naval base in the western Pacific, Guam is too valuable to the U.S. military to be permitted independence.

Ever since we lived on-island 30 years ago there has been something of a "Brown Power" movement on Guam. Its adherents would love to be a quasi-independent "nation" like Palau or FSM, out from under U.S. anti-corruption laws and FBI enforcement.