Don’t blame us for Trump

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A friend of mine in Florida, who only recently became an American decades after marrying one, cast her vote for Kamala Harris early, to keep Donald Trump (or the ‘orange stain’, as she calls him) out of the White House. However, four million US nationals will have had no say in the matter; while all US citizens are nationals, not all US nationals are citizens, disenfranchising them further.

When Trump-supporting comedian Tony Hinchcliffe described Puerto Rico as ‘a floating island of garbage’, it was a particularly low blow given that its residents have no vote in the presidential election, despite being US citizens, and its only representation in Congress is a non-voting Resident Commissioner in the House of Representatives, with none in the Senate.

Historically, before being admitted to the Union, many states, then territories, elected non-voting delegates to the House as a first step to achieving statehood, but since Hawaii in 1959, no territory has been admitted. Puerto Rico, the most populous of them, is divided on the issue, with some favouring statehood, others independence, and others the status quo, while in the US itself, Republicans are lukewarm, dreading an increased number of Democrats on Capitol Hill.

In my innocence, I thought that the reason for this limited political representation was because Puerto Rico, along with the US Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Marianas and American Samoa, was because they weren’t subject to federal taxes, a case of no representation without taxation, but there are more unsavoury reasons, hence them being ‘foreign in a domestic sense’.

When most of them were acquired following the Spanish-American War, there was a Supreme Court ruling that they were inhabited by ‘alien races’ unable to be governed by ‘Anglo-Saxon principles’, and therefore the Constitution didn’t have to apply there, and by extension, nor did voting rights. Despite only being supposed to apply ‘for a time’, it does so to this day, having been extended to the formerly Danish US Virgin Islands, the formerly German American Samoa, and the Japanese Northern Marianas, which only have non-voting delegates in Congress.

However, at least Puerto Ricans living in any of the 50 US states can vote in federal elections, no different from an Alaskan after moving to Arkansas, whereas American Samoans cannot, on account of being non-citizen nationals, though they have the option of becoming citizens after moving there. Despite this, some in the territory defend this status as giving them traditional non-reciprocal rights over land ownership, which might be jeopardised were it done away with.

As for US citizens moving in the other direction, their voting rights are downgraded, leaving them with fewer voting rights than they would in, say, the UK. Or indeed, the British Virgin Islands; whereas a Californian moving there would retain the right to vote in federal elections back in their home state, in the US Virgin Islands next door, they would not, despite the latter’s tax laws and tax rates being aligned with US ones.

One thing that is particularly unjust, though, is that despite Guam being home to a large US military presence, its delegate has no vote on National Defense Authorization or Foreign Affairs Authorization Acts, Congress having far more oversight over these matters than Parliament in the UK, where they are still the preserve of ministers using prerogative powers.

However, Guam holds a straw poll in the presidential election, with candidates appearing on the same ballot paper as the one used for its own elections, held the same day, so it doesn’t cost any more. And since 1984 it has been a barometer for how the US will actually vote.

Until 1972, Guam did not even have a delegate, and had to elect a ‘resident representative’, who could not sit in Congress, only lobby it. Puerto Rico goes one better, and shows its dissatisfaction by holding elections for ‘shadow’ senators and representatives. As does Washington DC, which only has a non-voting delegate, and only then since 1971; despite being the capital of a country founded in opposition to taxation without representation, residents of DC are subject to just that.

Poignantly, my friend’s vote in Florida was her first anywhere; as a British Dependent Territories citizen from St Helena living in Ascension, host to both US and British military, she had no vote in either, nor the UK. How could ‘shadow MPs’ elected to Westminster be any worse? At least voteless Americans show initiative!

* Ken Westmoreland is a member of the Taunton and Wellington Local Party.

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