{"id":322400,"date":"2020-05-07T06:00:28","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T20:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=322400"},"modified":"2020-05-07T06:00:28","modified_gmt":"2020-05-06T20:00:28","slug":"us-supreme-court-declines-to-take-up-guam-plebiscite-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/us-supreme-court-declines-to-take-up-guam-plebiscite-case\/","title":{"rendered":"US Supreme Court declines to take up Guam plebiscite case"},"content":{"rendered":"

HAGATNA, Guam <\/strong>(AP)\u2014The U.S. Supreme Court announced it will not review a case that could affect the political status of Guam.<\/p>\n

The order issued Monday means a July 2019 federal appeals court ruling will stand and Guam\u2019s native inhabitants cannot participate in a political status plebiscite, The Pacific Daily News reported.<\/p>\n

The Guam government in December appealed a July 2019 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which said the island\u2019s political status plebiscite is race-based and violates constitutionally protected voting rights.<\/p>\n

The non-binding vote would determine whether native inhabitants prefer statehood, free association or independence from the United States.<\/p>\n

Guam is a U.S. colony and the results of the plebiscite could have helped shape the island\u2019s future actions involving decolonization.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s appeal was considered a long shot, as the Supreme Court typically agrees to consider only about 3% of appeals. The court did not issue its reasoning for rejecting the Guam case.<\/p>\n

Guam resident Arnold Davis filed a 2011 federal lawsuit against the Guam Election Commission after the panel denied his request to register for the plebiscite because he did not meet the legal definition of a \u201cnative inhabitant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guam\u2019s plebiscite law defines native inhabitants as people who became U.S. citizens because of the Organic Act, which establishes U.S. territories, and their descendants. <\/p>\n

The government argued the Ninth Circuit incorrectly held that Guam\u2019s plebiscite law is considered a \u201cvote.\u201d The plebiscite is instead a targeted public opinion survey that does not impact public policy, the government argued.<\/p>\n

Davis\u2019 attorneys asked the Supreme Court to reject the government\u2019s petition, saying the plebiscite is not simply a non-binding survey and would commit the government to take a position on the island\u2019s political status.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HAGATNA, Guam (AP)\u2014The U.S. Supreme Court announced it will not review a case that could…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":322159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[51],"class_list":["post-322400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-guam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}