[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 145 (Friday, October 24, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H9547-H9549]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  DETERMINING GUAM'S POLITICAL FUTURE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Guam [Mr. Underwood] is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I take to the floor to talk a little bit

[[Page H9548]]

about H.R. 100, which is the Commonwealth bill for Guam. This bill was 
first introduced in 1989 and it has endured some 8 years of negotiation 
with both the Bush and the Clinton Administration, and to date we have 
not reached any consensus on this bill.
  As a consequence of that, I had asked the gentleman from Alaska [Don 
Young], Chairman of the Committee on Resources, to schedule a hearing 
in order to perhaps facilitate more discussion on the bill and to get a 
kind of check on the health of the bill, both from the perspective of 
the administration and the Congress. The chairman of the Committee on 
Resources has gratefully allowed us to have this hearing on October 29, 
next Wednesday.
  H.R. 100 has been a bill that we deliberately labeled it H.R. 100, 
because next year, 1998, stands for the 100th anniversary in which the 
island of Guam has been associated with the United States. Guam was 
ceded to the United States by Spain as a result of the Spanish-American 
War, and next year we commemorate or celebrate, or otherwise 
acknowledge in one way or another the 100th anniversary of what most 
historians call the splendid little war.
  In that time period, Guam has really, its political status has only 
been changed once. It was and still is an unincorporated territory, but 
the process of changing perhaps the way in which Guam has been dealt 
with occurred only once, and that was in 1950 with the passage of the 
Guam Organic Act, making the indigenous people, the Chamorro people of 
Guam, U.S. citizens.
  Since that time, it certainly has been clear to the people of Guam 
that we need to revisit our political status, and that we need to 
revisit our relationship with the Federal Government.
  Throughout the decades ever the 1980's, there were a series of 
elections that took place on Guam with all eligible voters 
participating on what political status Guam should pursue for the 
immediate future. In 1982, this election was held and the two winners 
were what was labeled Commonwealth and the aspiration for statehood, 
and a runoff election was held between those two sometime later, two 
years later, and the eventual winner of that, by a 3 to 1 margin, was 
Commonwealth.
  There ensued on Guam a series of discussions and public hearings in 
which a Commonwealth proposal was fashioned, and this led to a 12-
titled piece of legislation, which was in itself voted on, article-by-
article, and which eventually surfaced as legislation ratified by the 
voters of Guam, and legislation which was introduced in Congress in 
1989.
  At that time, the Subcommittee on Insular Affairs of the Committee on 
Resources held a hearing on this Commonwealth proposal, and suggested 
that there be a period of time in which negotiations and discussions 
could be held between, at that time, the Bush administration, and the 
Commission on Self-Determination, which is a body created by Guam 
public law.
  There ensued a period of discussions for 3 years, and at the 
conclusion of the Bush administration, the Bush Administration 
concluded that they could not agree to major parts of this Commonwealth 
proposal and left it at that, with a negative report that was actually 
issued 1 hour before the administrators at the Department of the 
Interior physically left office, signalling the end of the Bush 
administration.
  As a consequence, we had very serious high hopes when the Clinton 
administration came in, and for the past few years we have been in 
discussion with the Clinton administration with a team led by John 
Garamendi, the Honorable John Garamendi, the Deputy Secretary of the 
Department of the Interior.
  Throughout those discussions we have discovered, somewhat to our 
dismay, that many of the people we were confronting in earlier times 
under the Bush administration were essentially the same bureaucrats and 
had the same bureaucratic perspectives of those under the succeeding 
administration, and to date very little progress has been made.
  What is Guam seeking in this legislation? Well, Guam is seeking in 
this legislation a new relationship with the Federal Government. It 
seeks a new relationship with the Federal Government through a joint 
commission to review the application of laws and the application of 
rules and regulations for the people of Guam. It seeks to resolve some 
issues of historical injustice regarding Federal landholdings on Guam 
and the right of the Chamorro people, the indigenous people of Guam, to 
ultimately determine their political faith in the future.
  Lastly, it offers some economic items that would lead to a greater 
economic growth for Guam. That is the basis for this package that we 
call the Guam Commonwealth proposal. At this point in time, I wish that 
I could report that we had made great progress with the administration, 
but we have not made that great progress. Yet, I remain the optimist 
and hope that in the context of the hearing next week, we will have 
people who will say there may be serious disagreements, but that there 
will always be opportunities to further discuss this and that the 
administration would not close the door to further discussion.
  It is my hope as well that as the Committee on Resources, which is 
the only committee in this body that is charged with the general 
management and review of insular affairs, takes its responsibilities 
seriously with regard to the territories. It is of note that the 
Committee on Resources hearing room, the primary hearing room used by 
the Committee on Resources, is the only committee room in Congress that 
flies the flags of the insular areas behind the chairman's seat. So 
this responsibility is entrusted to the Committee on Resources, and I 
think the people of Guam are coming to the Committee on Resources with 
a sense that these are people who understand their responsibility with 
regard to the territories.
  At one time or another, even though it may not be of abiding concern 
to many Americans, because we are talking about fellow Americans who 
are few in number and quite distant, the island I represent is some 
9,000 miles from Washington, DC; is on the other side of the 
international dateline; takes some 19 hours to get to by air; and has 
only 150,000 people. It is very difficult to understand why this would 
be an abiding concern to most Americans. Yet, these people are U.S. 
citizens. We fight and we die in American wars.
  Guam has the distinction of having the highest per capita casualty 
rate and death rate from Vietnam. And nobody asked us whether we were 
full citizens or second-class citizens as we sought to participate 
fully in those challenges that are most presented by American 
citizenship.

                              {time}  1445

  At some point in time we are going to have to cross that bridge and 
try to understand what is the meaning for U.S. citizenship and what 
kinds of ways can we offer people who live in distant and small areas 
in order to more effectively participate as American citizens in their 
government.
  We all take it as a core creed of America that the only legitimate 
form of government is through the consent of the governed. That is not 
true for all Americans, because it is certainly not true for the 
insular areas. The insular areas do not have meaningful participation 
in the development of the laws under which they must live, laws which 
are passed in this body in which we have nonvoting representation by 
delegates, laws which are passed in the other body in which there is no 
representation, and laws which then become administrative rules created 
by an administration which the people of the territories cannot vote 
for. So in that sense there is no meaningful participation, and that 
violates the very creed of America and the sense of American democracy.
  So we need to be creative as we try to figure out what is the meaning 
of American citizenship for the people of the insular areas, and 
certainly I am making that pitch for the people of Guam.
  The real test of our democratic creed is not to try to act when only 
it is in our best interests, but to try to act and to understand the 
necessity to act when there is no personal interest at stake, other 
than the pure understanding of democratic principles.
  So the people of Guam come to this hearing hoping for a fair hearing 
and a fair opportunity for their proposal, and I am sure that most of 
the members of the Committee on Resources will give them that 
opportunity. I am sure that

[[Page H9549]]

most of the people of this great country will understand that if they 
had the opportunity to draw a little attention to it.
  When we talk about extending the basic principles of democracy to 
other parts of the world or shoring them up, and we are talking about 
millions and millions of people, and we are talking about trade 
interests and strategic interests and security interests, there is an 
imperative in that beyond the desire for democracy, to make democracy 
work in other parts of the world.
  But when we are challenged simply by the existence of 150,000 
citizens by people who live on what is a relatively small island some 
9,000 miles away, really, when there is no abiding interest to address 
those issues, we are really testing whether we do really care about 
democracy, where we are willing to think outside the box, and try to 
come up with and fashion an instrument which gives these people 
meaningful participation in the Government which controls their lives.
  The people of Guam will be represented by a large delegation: The 
three living Governors, the current Governor, Carl Gutierrez, the 
Honorable Paul Calvo, and the Honorable Joseph Ada, both of whom are 
Republicans, Carl Gutierrez is a Democrat, this proposal is very 
bipartisan on Guam and supported across the board by the elected 
leadership; Senators Tony Blaz, who is the vice speaker of the Guam 
Legislature, Senator Mark Forbes, the chairperson of the Federal 
Relations Committee of the Guam Legislature, Senator Ben Pangelinan, 
the minority leader, Senator Elizabeth Barrett-Anderson, chairperson of 
the Committee on the Judiciary of the Guam Legislature; Chief Justice 
Pete Siguenza; presiding judge, Alberto LaMorena; members of six groups 
that are important in the context of Guam; and a very important 
symbolic figure for most people on Guam, the Archbishop, Anthony 
Apuron; leader of the Chamorro Nation, Ed Benavente; leader of the 
Organization of People for Indigenous Rights, Hope Cristobal; chairman 
of the Chamber of Commerce, Sonny Ada; president of the Guam Bar 
Association, J. Arriola; and president of the Filipino Community of 
Guam, Roger Ruelos have all received invitations, and we look forward 
to their testimony.
  We certainly look forward to welcoming them to Washington and hope 
that they have a safe trip to this very distant city, when you look at 
it from Guam's point of view; and hopefully we will give them a warm 
welcome, and entertain warmly the proposal of a people who are striving 
to create a mechanism to better participate in the fabric of American 
democracy through a Commonwealth proposal.
  It is a proposal whose time has come, it is a proposal that must be 
addressed, and it is a proposal that deserves the serious attention of 
the members of the Committee on Resources as well as all Members of the 
House of Representatives and the American people at large.

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