Could bill redefine who decides Guam's future?

Guam’s push for self-determination has reached a legal crossroads. Now, a new bill aims to break the stalemate and redefine who gets to decide the island’s future.

For nearly a decade, Guam’s political status plebiscite had been tied up in the courts, stalled by a constitutional challenge that left the island at a standstill.  At the center of the issue is the Guam Decolonization System created to allow “native inhabitants of Guam” to register for a future plebiscite on the island’s political status.

Under local law, “native inhabitants” are defined as those who became U.S. citizens under the 1950 Organic Act of Guam and their descendants. Supporters of that framework have argued that those were the people directly impacted by colonization, war, and the imposition of U.S. citizenship.

But in 2011, Arnold Davis – a longtime resident who moved to Guam in the 1970s – attempted to register and was denied because he did not meet that definition. He then sued the Government of Guam, arguing the restriction violated the 15th Amendment, which prohibits denying the right to vote based on race.

In 2019, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the “native inhabitant” classification functioned as a proxy for race and was therefore unconstitutional. “We have exhausted all of our appeals in the court and the Supreme Court has denied cert, so they’re going to deny hearing this. So, that means we have kind of reached a ceiling on how far we can pursue this under the courts," he stated.

Senator William Parkinson says the legal reality has forced him to act. His Bill 242 would remove the ancestry-based voter restriction completely – opening the status vote to all registered voters – in order to bring Guam’s law into compliance with the court ruling and allow the plebiscite to move forward. 

Senator Parkinson says the road leading to this bill brought him to consider a myriad of proposals.  Before introducing the bill, Parkinson held town halls to explore whether a compromise on the date defining “native inhabitants” could be reached among the community. 

"Can we compromise and change it to, perhaps, 1997 when the Office of Decolonization was founded? So if you were here in ‘97 or any of your descendants," said the senator.

He says the community stood firm on the 1950 date, noting, “We cannot compromise on that date because that was the date of the Organic Act when American citizenship was forced upon the CHamoru people without their consent.”

With no legal way to keep the existing language, Parkinson turned to Guam’s 1982 plebiscite – open to all voters – as a precedent. “I didn’t pull this solution out of a hat. I looked into Guam’s history and at what we did before that actually worked," he said.

Still, the bill has reignited a broader debate that goes beyond legal technicalities. Who is the “self” in self-determination? Some argue the decision belongs to the indigenous CHamoru people and the descendants of those present on Guam in 1950 as the historical inheritors of colonization and its consequences.

But Parkinson notes that self-determination votes around the world have not once been limited by race. “If you look at every single plebiscite or self-determination vote that has been pursued through the UN, not a single one of them has had race-based exclusions," he stated.

Questions also remain about residency. Under current law, a person can vote after just 30 days of legal residency – a standard some believe is too short for a decision with generational consequences.

Parkinson says he’s open to discussion, but the larger issue is just moving forward.  “For 40 years we’ve been waiting and we shouldn’t wait any longer." he said.

“So, I want to settle this question because it is the most important and pressing question that has ever faced the people of Guam.”

The public hearing for Bill 242 is scheduled for February 18 at 9am at the Guam Congress Building.