1 2 7 relevant factors. Summary Judgment is GRANTED and judgment will be entered in the form proposed by the movants in this case. A. B. C. D. ATTACHMENTS TO STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD GUAM COMMISSION ON SELF-DETERMINATION HOUSE RESOURCES COMMITTEE (105th CONGRESS) HEARING ON H.R. 100 THE DRAFT GUAM COMMONWEALTH ACT October 29, 1997 Self-Government Through Mutual Consent, Guam Commonwealth - Memorandum for the Special Representative for Guam Commonwealth - Memorandum to I. Michael Heyman, Special Representative for Guam Self-Determination for the People of Guam: A Legal Analysis ATTACHMENT A SELF-GOVERNMENT THROUGH MUTUAL CONSENT GUAM COMMONWEALTH Presented By: Washington Counsel To The Guam Commission on February 11, 1993 I. INTRODUCTION TO MUTUAL CONSENT "Mortimer Adler, writing in "We the People" describes American citizens as "American citizen-sovereigns". Ross Perot says "We own the country". The citizens of the U.S. territories are not part of the "we" of either Dr. Adler or Ross Perot. The citizens of Guam and the other territories are unable to participate in the national government through voting representation, voting for president or constitutional amendments. The U.S. citizens of the territories and Commonwealths are, therefore, "American citizensubjects", just as the British were "subjects" of the crown in for 1775. A. A Government Acting without the Consent of the Governed Is there any doubt among us, that a founding principle of this country was the rejection of government acting without the consent of the governed? The United States exists today because our founding fathers rose up against colonial rulers who, while exercising control from a distant land, refused the people in the colonies any meaningful role in the governance process. The failure to provide for meaningful participation in the process of government ultimately weighed so heavily on the people of the colonies that they were forced to cast it off through armed rebellion. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence: Governments are instituted among Men, deriving Nevertheless, the early American democracy was an imperfect model with many excluded from the democratic process. Americans with vision and a commitment to democratic principles have struggled for the last two hundred years toward bringing more American citizens within the political process. The Constitution, for instance, has been amended three times to ensure that more of our citizens could vote.' Even these Amendments were not enough. Congress has found it necessary to adopt innumerable pieces of legislation to promote and protect civil and voting rights, all with the overriding goal of enabling all the people to participate in the democratic process. While for many of us progress has been painfully slow, I have inexorably toward Our founding little question that we have moved fathers' original goal of establishing a truly representative government which exists with the consent of those it governs. B. Voting for Members of the House and Senate and for the Having the consent of the people, of course, does not mean that all of the people must agree with each action of government. Rather, ours is a republican form of government in which the people elect their representatives who sit in the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Presidency and act on their behalf. The American people participate in our democracy through The Fifteenth Amendment eliminated voting restrictions based on race. The Nineteenth Amendment eliminated voting restrictions based on sex. The Twenty-Third Amendment gave the people of the District of Columbia a presidential vote. |