Comment by arjie
6 days ago
What a curiosity. It appears that other territories count by statute but for American Samoa the US national designation was created to give them similar rights to citizens but not voting or political office and in exchange the Samoans get some more self-determination than other territories. Cool!
Yes, lots of them don't want the 14th amendment. They have racist/ethnocentric land ownership laws that contradict the 14th amendment, the same one that creates birthright citizenship.
There are also allegedly some low quasi-government tribal positions in remote areas where women are effectively ineligible for office, though this one is less provable, it also would not be consistent with constitutional protections.
So many historical curiosities in this whole thing. Hawaii vs Puerto Rico, for instance, the latter having more people but not a state. I imagine we put up with the Samoan rules because we wanted the strategic base. My own citizenship rests on the fact that other territories have been included into birthright citizenship by statute.
Hawaii also bizarrely has 14th amendment violating land laws. There is a non-Indian-reservation, state owned land called the "Hawaiian Homelands" where only those of "the blood" of the right people can lease from. This violates the 14th amendment (SCOTUS has ruled Indians are exempted, but Hawaiians were determined in Rice v Cayetano to not be Indians) protections on equal protection under the law of different races to enjoyment of the public lands. No one has bothered to challenge it yet, but I expect especially under this SCOTUS the Homelands will get steamrolled if they do.
Hawaii's 14th and 15th amendment violating laws have slowly been getting flushed out. In ~2000 non "native" local voters could finally vote for all offices (RBG dissented, vouching for racist voting laws and against the 15th amendment), and IIRC not long after that it became possible for those with the wrong "blood" to hold all offices.
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