We simply cannot ignore the basic truth that the super majority of people actually living in American Samoa vociferously opposed the case.

American Samoa is unique by virtue that it became the only U.S. territory by deed secession starting in 1900.

We want any change in our political status and rights under federal territorial law to be decided by elected leaders in the local government.

More than 3.5 million U.S. citizens are denied constitutional rights simply because they reside in one of the five U.S. territories.

We do not want to have court decide the fate of our people as it was done resulting in the Insular Cases.

House Resolution 279, which calls the Insular Cases racist, undemocratic, unconstitutional, unAmerican, and having no place in the America we know and love, is the first and important step to make amends.

What we oppose is the wholesale rejection of these cases because we believe such an action will have a lasting impact on the underlying structure of our political relationship with the U.S.

House Resolution 279 could be interpreted as an invitation for the courts to repeal the Insular Cases without giving any rights to sovereign people.

I co-sponsored the Resolution being discussed today because the Insular Cases doctrine denies democracy and equality and reflects abhorrent bias and have provided a justification for Congress to discriminate against American citizens…

But Congress has authority to do that, right?

As a resident of the Virgin Islands, it is of the utmost importance that we, as Members of Congress, confront our disenfranchisement.

I offer my qualified support for House Resolution 279, which acknowledges that the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions in the Insular Cases and the territorial incorporation doctrine are contrary to the text and history of the U.S. Constitution.

We must ensure that the needs of the U.S. Virgin Islands are heard.

There is material doubt about how the courts will play the role of judicial review assigned by the Constitution.

The solution chosen by the voters of Puerto Rico to determine its ultimate political status is clear: they chose by clear majority the equality within the Nation that they are citizens of.

Simply put, America has a colonies problem.

At the core of the disenfranchisement of territorial residents are the racially charged series of Supreme Court decisions in the early 1900s, the Insular Cases.

What makes me proud to call myself an American, is the fact that the country is capable of recognizing its past mistakes.