Tuesday, July 30, 2019

Davis v. Guam (9th Cir. - July 29, 2019)

I'm in the Canadian wilderness on vacation, but it's a testament to our interconnected world that there is still sporadic Internet access. What a world.

Meanwhile, as a reminder that the United States spans a great deal of territory, there's this opinion from the Ninth Circuit. It's another case in which Guam has attempted to run an election in which (essentially) only Chamorro people can vote. Prior attempts have described the franchise in express racial terms. This time, Guam attempts the same thing, but in different language, limiting voting to "Native Inhabitants of Guam."

The Ninth Circuit says: "Nice try. No dice."

We've got a history with race and voting here in the United States. As well as the use of proxies to attempt to accomplish the same thing the Fifteenth Amendment prohibits.

So we're pretty sensitive to it at this point. Since they definitely were not our proudest moments.