Opinion ID: 4420932
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Individuals born in Guam on or after

Text: April 11, 1899. 8 U.S.C. § 1407 (1952). This definition is so closely associated with the express racial classification “Chamorro” used in previously enacted statutes that it can only be 34 DAVIS V. GUAM sensibly understood as a proxy for that same racial classification. 14 The 2000 Plebiscite Law’s immediate predecessors were not shy about using an express racial classification. The Registry Act established an official list of “Chamorro” people, defined according to the Organic Act, as inhabitants of Guam in 1899 who were Spanish subjects or were born in Guam before 1899, and the descendants of those individuals. Registry Act § 20001(a). In its legislative findings and statement of intent, the Registry Act provided: “The Guam Legislature recognizes that the indigenous people of Guam, the Chamorros, have endured as a population with a distinct language and culture despite suffering over three hundred years of colonial occupation by Spain, the United States of America, and Japan.” Id. § 1. It further stated: “The Guam Legislature . . . endeavors to memorialize the indigenous Chamorro people . . . who continue to develop as one Chamorro people on their homeland, Guam.” Id. Finally, the Registry Act recognized that “[t]he Legislature intends for this registry to assist in the process of heightening local awareness among the people of Guam of the current struggle for Commonwealth, of the identity of the indigenous Chamorro people of Guam, and of the role that Chamorros and succeeding generations play in the island’s cultural survival and in Guam’s political evolution towards selfgovernment.” Id. As part of those purposes, the law recognized that the registry may be used “for the future 14 Guam acknowledged in the district court that the term “Chamorro” refers to a distinct racial category and does not seriously contest otherwise on appeal. We have similarly recognized “Chamorro” as a racial classification for Fifteenth Amendment purposes. See Commonwealth Election Comm’n, 844 F.3d at 1093 (treating “Northern Marianas Chamorro” as a racial classification). DAVIS V. GUAM 35 exercise of self-determination by the indigenous Chamorro people of Guam.” Id. The Registry Act formally tied the definition of Chamorro to the race-neutral language of the Organic Act. But the enactment as a whole rested on the concept that the Chamorro were a “distinct people” with a “common culture,” the very hallmarks of racial classification Rice relied upon in concluding that “Hawaiian” defined a racial group for Fifteenth Amendment purposes. See 528 U.S. at 514–15. The 1997 Plebiscite Law, which the 2000 Plebiscite Law built directly upon, similarly employed express racial classifications. The 1997 law called for a plebiscite limited to the “Chamorro people of Guam,” defined as “[a]ll inhabitants of Guam in 1898 and their descendants who have taken no affirmative steps to preserve or acquire foreign nationality.” 1997 Plebiscite Law § 2(b). Like the Registry Act, the 1997 Plebiscite Law repeatedly employed the term “Chamorro” to note a distinct group and described that group as facing “colonial discrimination” and “long-standing injustice.” Id. § 1. Additionally, the Guam legislature has long defined the term “Native Chamorro” for purposes of the Chamorro Land Trust Commission to include “any person who became a U.S. citizen by virtue of the authority and enactment of the Organic Act of Guam or descendants of such person.” Guam Pub. L. No. 15-118 (1980) (codified at 21 Guam Code Ann. § 75101(d)). The CLTC qualifies Native Chamorros to lease land the United States previously seized from Guam’s inhabitants during and after World War II and later returned to the Guam government. After passage of the 2000 Plebiscite Law, the Guam legislature enacted a law providing that individuals who receive a lease or were 36 DAVIS V. GUAM preapproved for one through the CLTC are automatically registered in the Guam Decolonization Registry, thereby qualifying them to vote in the plebiscite. 3 Guam Code Ann. § 21002.1. Several similarities between the 2000 Plebiscite Law and its predecessors reveal that “Native Inhabitants of Guam” is a proxy for “Chamorro,” and therefore for a racial classification. First, the 2000 Plebiscite Law’s definition of “Native Inhabitants of Guam” is nearly indistinguishable from the definitions of “Chamorro” in the Registry Act, the 1997 Plebiscite Law, and the CLTC. “Native Inhabitants of Guam” incorporates all the citizenship provisions of the Organic Act, as does the definition of “Native Chamorro” in the CLTC; the Registry Act and the 1997 Plebiscite Law mirror the first two sections of those provisions. Compare 2000 Plebiscite Law § 21001(e); 21 Guam Code Ann. § 75101(d); Registry Act § 20001(a); 1997 Plebiscite Law § 2(b), with 8 U.S.C. § 1407 (1952). 15 That Guam applies 15 The Registry Act’s and the 1997 Plebiscite Law’s definition of “Chamorro” do not incorporate the third citizenship provision of the Organic Act, which grants citizenship to individuals born in Guam on or after April 11, 1899. 8 U.S.C. § 1407(b) (1952). Because the INA replaced the citizenship provisions of the Organic Act in 1952, see Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, Pub. L. No. 82-414, § 403(a)(42), 66 Stat. 163, 280, this third provision uniquely includes only individuals who were born in Guam between 1899 and 1952 but were not descendants of individuals residing in Guam before 1899. The inclusion of this third provision into the definition of “Native Inhabitants of Guam” does not meaningfully differentiate the term “Native Inhabitants of Guam” from the term “Chamorro.” Even including the third citizenship provision of the Organic Act, it appears that as of 1950 98.6% of people who were non-citizen nationals, and thereby likely received citizenship pursuant to the Organic Act, were categorized as “Chamorro.” See 1950 Census at 54-49 tbl. 38. DAVIS V. GUAM 37 nearly identical definitions to the terms “Chamorro,” a racial category, and “Native Inhabitants of Guam” indicates that these terms are interchangeable. The closeness of the association is sufficient to conclude that the term “Native Inhabitants of Guam” is a proxy for the “Chamorro” classification. Second, the 2000 Plebiscite Law maintains nearly identically the features of the facially race-based Registry Act and the 1997 Plebiscite Law. This continuity confirms the 2000 Plebiscite Law’s changes to the Chamorro classification were semantic and cosmetic, not substantive. 16 The 2000 Plebiscite Law creates a “Guam Decolonization Registry” that mirrors the earlier Registry Act. The new registry is structured similarly to the earlier one, including requiring an affidavit to register, compare 2000 Plebiscite Law § 21002, with Registry Act § 20002; administering the registry through the Guam Election Commission, compare 2000 Plebiscite Law § 21001(d), with Registry Act § 20001(c); and criminalizing false registration, compare 2000 Plebiscite Law § 21009, with Registry Act § 20009. The 2000 Plebiscite Law also amends the 1997 Plebiscite Law to eliminate references to “Chamorro” people, but otherwise retains the same features. See 2000 Plebiscite Law §§ 7, 9–11. Both statutes establish non-binding elections on 16 The 2000 Plebiscite Law slightly changed the definition of “Chamorro” in the Registry Act to include individuals born in Guam prior to 1800 and their descendants. See 2000 Plebiscite Law § 12; supra, n.4. However, this post-hoc revision does not change the near identical resemblance between the definitions of “Native Inhabitants of Guam” in the 2000 Plebiscite Law and the original definition of “Chamorro” in the Registry Act. 38 DAVIS V. GUAM Guam’s future political status relationship with the United States, the results of which will be transmitted to the federal government and to the United Nations. Compare 2000 Plebiscite Law §§ 10–11, with 1997 Plebiscite Law §§ 5, 10. Given the similarity in the substantive provisions and in the definitions of “Chamorro” and of “Native Inhabitants of Guam,” the substitution of terms does not erase the 1997 Plebiscite Law’s premise for the voting restriction—to treat the Chamorro as a “distinct people.” Rice, 528 U.S. at 515. Finally, the timing of the 2000 Plebiscite Law’s enactment confirms its racial basis. The 2000 Plebiscite Law was enacted on March 24, 2000, just one month after Rice was decided. In Rice, Hawaii had revised its definition of “Hawaiian” from an earlier version, by replacing the word “races” with “peoples.” Id. at 515–16. The Supreme Court concluded based on the drafters’ own admission that “any changes to the language were at most cosmetic.” Id. at 516. Although we have no similar admission, the same is true here. After Rice, Guam’s swift reenactment of essentially the same election law—albeit with a change in terms—indicates that the Guam legislature’s intent was to apply cosmetic changes rather than substantively to alter the voting restrictions for the plebiscite. Guam’s primary argument to the contrary is that “Native Inhabitants of Guam” is not a racial category but a political one referring to “a colonized people with a unique political relationship to the United States because their U.S. citizenship was granted by the Guam Organic Act.” It attempts to distinguish this case from Rice on the ground that the voter qualification here is tethered not to presence in the Territory at a particular date but to the passage of a specific law—the Organic Act—which altered the legal status of the group to which the ancestral inquiry is linked. DAVIS V. GUAM 39 But indirect or tiered racial classifications, tethered to prior, race-based legislative enactments, are subject to the same Fifteenth Amendment proscription on race-based voting restrictions as are explicitly racial classifications. In Guinn, the Supreme Court invalidated an Oklahoma constitutional amendment that established a literacy requirement for voting eligibility but exempted the “lineal descendant[s]” of persons who were “on January 1, 1866, or at any time prior thereto, entitled to vote under any form of government, or who at that time resided in some foreign nation.” 238 U.S. at 356–7. That classification, like the one at issue here, was facially tethered to specific laws—the voter eligibility laws in existence in 1866 before the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified. In that year, only eight northern states permitted African Americans to vote. See Benno C. Schmdit, Jr., Principle and Prejudice: The Supreme Court and Race in the Progressive Era Part 3, 82 Colum. L. Rev. 835, 862 (1982). Guinn held the challenged Oklahoma voting qualification incorporated— without acknowledging their racial character—a set of former race-based statutory restrictions. 238 U.S. at 364–65. In essence, the Court recognized that Oklahoma was reviving its earlier race-based voting restrictions, thereby violating the Fifteenth Amendment. Nor is Guam’s argument that the classification here is political supported by the Supreme Court’s recognition that classifications based on American Indian ancestry are political in nature. Laws employing the American Indian classification targeted individuals “not as a discrete racial group, but, rather, as members of quasi-sovereign tribal entities.” Mancari, 417 U.S. at 554; see also Rice, 528 U.S. 40 DAVIS V. GUAM at 518–20; United States v. Antelope, 430 U.S. 641 (1977). 17 Both the Supreme Court and we have rejected the application of Mancari for Fifteenth Amendment purposes with respect to non-Indian indigenous groups, namely those in Hawaii and the CNMI respectively. See Rice, 528 U.S. at 518–20; Commonwealth Election Comm’n, 844 F.3d at 1094. 18 Nothing counsels a different result in this case. Here, the parallels between the 2000 Plebiscite Law and previously enacted statutes expressly employing racial classifications are too glaring to brush aside. The near identity of the definitions for “Native Inhabitants of Guam” and “Chamorro,” the lack of other substantive changes, and 17 Although Mancari’s rationale was premised on the recognized quasi-sovereign tribal status of Indians, “the Supreme Court has not insisted on continuous tribal membership, or tribal membership at all, as a justification for special treatment of Indians,” and neither has Congress. Kamehameha Schs., 470 F.3d at 851 (Fletcher, J., concurring) (collecting cases and statutes). 18 Because we affirm the district court on Fifteenth Amendment grounds, we reserve judgment on whether the Mancari exception may apply to the “Native Inhabitants of Guam” classification outside the Fifteenth Amendment context. Rice, which rejected the application of Mancari to Hawaiians for Fifteenth Amendment purposes, was careful to confine its analysis to voting rights under that amendment. It stated that “[t]he validity of the voting restriction is the only question before us,” 528 U.S. at 521, and emphasized the unique character of voting rights under the Fifteenth Amendment. Id. at 512, 523–24; cf. Commonwealth Election Comm’n, 844 F.3d at 1095 (“[L]imits on who may own land are quite different—conceptually, politically, and legally—than limits on who may vote in elections to amend a constitution.”); Kamehameha Schs., 470 F.3d at 853 (Fletcher, J., concurring) (arguing that Native Hawaiians are a political—and not racial—classification for Fourteenth Amendment purposes because, in part, “[u]nlike Rice, the case before us does not involve preferential voting rights subject to challenge under the Fifteenth Amendment”). DAVIS V. GUAM 41 the timing of the 2000 Plebiscite Law’s enactment all indicate that the Law rests on a disguised but evident racial classification.