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I would like to submit for the record letters from Governor Lemanu Mauga and myself to our counterparts in other insular territories asking them not to support or endorse efforts to deny self-determination.
We want any change in our political status and rights under federal territorial law to be decided by elected leaders in the local government.
We support the intent of the resolution to repudiate the racist and shameful attitudes depicted in the Insular Cases.
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.
It is a central principle of our American democracy that Americans, through their votes, can have a say in their own governments.
I support denouncing the Insular Cases' for their racist origins and racial subordination of people in the U.S. territories.
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.
Simply put, America has a colonies problem.
The Supreme Court's decisions in the Insular Cases are contrary to the text and history of the Constitution.
At the core of the disenfranchisement of territory residents are the racially charged series of Supreme Court decisions in the early 1900s--the Insular Cases.
As a resident of the Virgin Islands, it is of the utmost importance that we, as Members of Congress, confront our disenfranchisement.
More than 3.5 million U.S. citizens are denied constitutional rights simply because they reside in one of the five U.S. territories.
More than 3.5 million United States citizens are denied constitutional rights because they reside in one of the five U.S. territories.
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.
It is the central principle of our American democracy that Americans through their votes can have a say in their government.
There is material doubt about how the courts will play the role of judicial review assigned by the Constitution.
What we are doing is to urge protection first and foremost for the self-determination and rights of sovereign-owned peoples.