[KS] Re: voting rights [was: Koreans in Japan]

[Dr. John Caruso Jr.]

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Yes, there are problems of equitable representation as Wash DC has a pop. of
520,000 while Wyoming (home of Dick Cheney) has only 480,000 residents and
gets two US Senators and one Congressperson.

Voting is historically a privilege not an inalienable right and the
electoral college further exposes the myth of majority rule as you mentioned
in Hayes v. Tilden.

Spanish is the language of instruction in Puerto Rico....I wonder how many
parallels we could draw between the status of Puerto Rico and the mainland
and Japan and Korea?  Didn't we annex PR in 1898 and force the residents to
become US citizens in 1917?

John



----- Original Message -----
From: "k u s h i b o" <jdh95 at hitel.net>
To: <korean-studies at iic.edu>
Sent: Sunday, September 03, 2000 7:29 PM
Subject: Re: voting rights [was: Koreans in Japan]


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> Dr. John Caruso Jr. wrote:
> > Yes, allowing Green Card holders in the USA to vote in local elections
would
> > be progressive...right after US citizens in the District of Columbia and
> > Puerto Rico get to vote for Congresspersons and Senators.
>
> Hmmm... why should it be *after* that? I think these things out to go
> hand-in-hand.
>
> Actually, I'm very sympathetic to DC residents' desire for full
> representation in the US Congress (i.e., both the Senate and the House),
but
> less so in the case of Puerto Rican residents.
>
> Statehood for any region of the US and its territories automatically leads
> to full represenation (I believe that Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin
Islands,
> the Northern Mariana Islands, and DC each have one non-voting delegate to
> the House, and DC has a non-voting "shadow senator").
>
> To my understanding, the District of Columbia is currently not eligible
for
> statehood because of the Constitution. In other words, the Constitution
> would have to be amended in order for DC to get statehood, and along with
> it, full representation. The same is true for Guam, the Northern Mariana
> Islands, and the Virgin Islands (am I missing any?), because their
> populations are not quite large enough to qualify for statehood. They,
too,
> should be included in new efforts to provide full representation.
>
> Puerto Rico, on the other hand, *is* eligible for statehood. Its
population
> of almost four million would put it in the middle of the pack in terms of
> number of residents. Yet, so far, the majority has not spoken in favor of
> statehood, but rather continued commonwealth status. There are benefits to
> said commonwealth status, and there are liabilities as well. The same is
> true of statehood, and many Puerto Ricans don't want statehood because of
> those liabilities. It's a bit contradictory, then, to seek the *benefits*
of
> statehood with the liabilities.
>
> Nevertheless, the argument could be made, I suppose, that Puerto Rico's
case
> is different from that of most of the mainland. Puerto Ricans want to
> protect their culture and identity while maintaining their status as proud
> American citizens, and commonwealth status provides the best opportunity
for
> doing so. But Hawaii was in an arguably similar situation, and it chose
> statehood (correct me if I'm wrong), so why can't Puerto Rico? There is no
> national language of the US, and the US is purported to be the
> fourth-largest Spanish-speaking country in the world, so Puerto Ricans'
> Spanish-speaking culture is not in particular danger.
>
> In contrast, the residents of Guam, Saipan and the rest of the Mariana
> Islands, DC, and the Virgin Islands have no option like the one before the
> Puerto Ricans.
>
> It must also be noted that residents of any of these territories and
> commonwealths are automatically given full representation if they change
> their place of residence to any of the US's fifty states. And likewise, if
> any citizen of those fifty states changes residence to one of these
> territories or commonwealths, he or she loses that full representation. My
> point being, it's not an issue of personal discrimination.
>
> Now if we want to get really progressive, among many reforms to the US
> political system, I suggest we have a couple Represenatives-at-large for
the
> two million overseas US citizens. My congressman back in Orange County
> doesn't particularly understand nor care about my needs as an American
> citizen abroad.
>
> Perhaps we can do that around the time we overhaul the college elector
> system. The winner-take-all aspect has the potential to skew the election
> (which is why we never had a President Tilden) and also to make third
party
> candidates more likely to be spoilers. Scrapping the system altogether in
> favor of popular vote might work (although it would make candidates have
> less incentive to visit the sparsely populated western states), or making
a
> winner-take-all system by congressional district or even voting precinct,
> would be a better idea.
>
> K U S H I B O
>
>