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

k u s h i b o jdh95 at hitel.net
Sun Sep 3 19:29:33 EDT 2000


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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






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