**Posted by Phineas
Even though it’s been a US territory since 1898 (1), few of us probably think much about or even know anything of Guam. When we do, it’s perhaps because of the island’s reputation for lots of snakes [1], or maybe the danger that it will tip over [2]. But there is a problem there that should demand the attention of anyone concerned with the civil liberties of Americans.
On Guam, if you’re of White, East Asian, or Filipino descent, you aren’t allowed to vote [3]:
“Chamorro” is the racial designation given to the natives who originally inhabited Guam and constitute about 36 percent of the population. Guam is a territory that today has many residents of Western European, American, Asian, and Pacific Islander descent. But all of those other residents are barred by law and the Guam Election Commission from registering and voting on the plebiscite over Guam’s future relationship with the United States.
The plaintiff in the lawsuit, Arnold Davis, is a former Air Force officer who has been a resident of the island since 1977. When he tried to register for the plebiscite, his application was rejected and marked as “void” by the Guam Election Commission because Davis is white. Bull Connor would have loved the registration form — it required Davis to certify his race under penalty of perjury! Guam is holding a discriminatory election that prohibits certain voters from participating based purely on their race.
Guam’s election restrictions are more extreme than anything that was in place in the South during the height of Jim Crow. Southern states such as Mississippi tried to make it as difficult as possible for blacks to vote through literacy tests, poll taxes, and other obstacles, but some small percentage of blacks were still able to get through this thicket of discrimination to actually register and vote. Guam, on the other hand, bars anyone who is white, Asian, or Filipino from voting in this plebiscite, and even makes it a crime for them to try to register.
It’s bad enough that Guam is resorting to discrimination so bold that it would make the likes of Theodore Bilbo proud. What’s as bad or worse is the reason Arnold Davis, represented by the Center for Individual Rights [4] and Christian Adams, author of Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department [5], had to file this suit against the Guamanian government: the Justice Department refused to act to protect the voting rights of American citizens.
As Hans von Spakowsky, author of the article, points out, the failure to apply civil rights law against minority violators is, under Obama and Holder, DoJ policy:
DOJ declined to file a lawsuit under the Voting Rights Act asserting that the deliberate racial discrimination by the “native people” of Guam violated federal law. As we know from the sworn testimony of former Voting Section chief Christopher Coates before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, deputy assistant attorney general Julie Fernandes informed him that it was the policy of the Obama administration that the Voting Rights Act is not to be enforced against racial minorities, no matter how egregious the violation. As CIR president Terence Pell says, the fact that this racial discrimination “continues to take place under the nose of the U.S. Department of Justice is unconscionable.”
Darned right it’s “unconscionable.” This action by Guam violates the 15th amendment [6] and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was written to enforce the 15th amendment. It’s an open and shut case that should lead to the Guamanian government being smacked down hard by the federal courts — if, under Obama, the laws were enforced in a race-neutral manner.
But that’s not the case.
Under Barack Obama and Eric Holder, the American principle of “equal justice under the law” has been perverted to “justice only for those groups we favor; the rest of you can go to the Devil.” We’ve seen this racial favoritism before in the 2008 New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case in Philadelphia, where the new administration in 2009 refused to protect the rights of White voters, and in others Adams details in “Injustice.”
Even though this case takes place in a tiny, far-away territory, let’s not minimize or dismiss the danger it reveals. One of the pillars on which our republic stands is the Rule of Law: the belief that the law is applied equally to all, one reason we’re willing to grant law-enforcement powers to government. It is a matter of trust crucial to obtaining and retaining the consent of the governed. It may not function perfectly, but it’s the ideal to which we hold and it’s the standard we demand of the government.
Turn the law instead into a vehicle for a racial spoils system and the Rule of Men, not Law, as Obama, Holder, and the rest of the racial grievance industry are doing, and you instead knock down that pillar and weaken that trust.
You attack the very legitimacy of the American government, itself.
I’ve no doubt Mr. Turner will win his suit in court, but the only remedy for the “pursuit of injustice” encouraged by Obama and Holder is the 2012 election and a thorough housecleaning at the Department of Justice.
For the sake of civil rights for all and the integrity of our political system, they have to go.
via the Election Law Center [7]
RELATED: See also Terence J. Pell’s article with more background [8] on the Guam case. Here’s a news report from Guam that includes interviews [9] with the plaintiff, Christian Adams, and a Guam senator who supports the exclusion of non-Chamorros from the vote in the belief that rights vest in groups, not individual citizens. Adams writes about the Guamanian “Jim Crow” law at PJ Media [10].
Footnote:
(1) ¡Gracias, España!
(Crossposted at Public Secrets [11])