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22 

FINANCIAL OVERSIGHT AND MANAGEMENT BD. FOR 
PUERTO RICO v. AURELIUS INVESTMENT, LLC 
SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring in judgment 

in  Statehood”  and  “the  establishment  of  popular  self-gov-
ernment”);  District  of  Columbia  v.  Carter,  409  U. S.  418, 
431–432  (1973)  (“From  the  moment  of  their  creation,  the 
Territories were destined for admission as States into the 
Union, and ‘as a preliminary step toward that foreordained 
end—to tide over the period of ineligibility—Congress, from 
time to time, created territorial governments, the existence
of which was necessarily limited’ ” (quoting O’Donoghue v. 
United  States,  289  U. S.  516,  537  (1933))).    But  critically, 
the  transitional  phase  was  never  intended  to  last  indefi-
nitely.  See Amar, America’s Constitution, at 273 (describ-
ing  the  Founders’  understanding  that  “[t]he  older  states 
would help their younger siblings grow up and would there-
after regard them as equals, rather than as permanent ad-
olescents—the  status  to  which  Mother  England  had 
wrongly relegated her own New World wards”).  The histor-
ical examples thus reveal little, if anything, about Congress’ 
ability  to  establish  territorial  officers  in  Territories  that 
(much like Puerto Rico) have long operated under the full
measure of self-government. 

This  Court’s  precedents  do  not  speak  to  that  circum-
stance either.  No doubt the Court has said that the Terri-
tories Clause gives Congress “full and complete legislative
authority over the people of the Territories and all the de-
partments of the territorial governments.”  County of Yank-
ton, 101 U. S., at 132–133; see also id., at 133 (“Congress
may not only abrogate laws of  the territorial legislatures,
but  it  may  itself  legislate  directly  for  the  local  govern-
ment”); Sere v. Pitot, 6 Cranch 332, 337 (1810); ante, at 3–4 
(THOMAS, J.,  concurring  in  judgment).    But  none  of  those 
cases had to do with the Appointments Clause.  More im-
portant, none of them addressed the scope of Congress’ au-
thority with respect to a fully self-governing Territory.  See 
Leibowitz, Defining Status, at 15 (observing that “the broad 
statements  of  Congressional  power”  in  those  cases  “were