Acknowledging that the United States Supreme Court's decisions in the Insular Cases and the "territorial incorporation doctrine" are contrary to the text and history of the United States Constitution, rest on racial views and stereotypes from the era of Plessy v. Ferguson that have long been rejected, are contrary to our Nation's most basic constitutional and democratic principles, and should be rejected as having no place in United States constitutional law.

IV 118TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION H. RES. 314 Acknowledging that the United States Supreme Court’s decisions in the Insular Cases and the ‘‘territorial incorporation doctrine’’ are contrary to the text and history of the United States Constitution, rest on racial views and stereotypes from the era of Plessy v. Ferguson that have long been rejected, are contrary to our Nation’s most basic constitutional and democratic principles, and should be rejected as having no place in United States constitutional law. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES APRIL 20, 2023 Mr. GRIJALVA (for himself, Ms. PLASKETT, Mr. SABLAN, Ms. VELA´ZQUEZ, Mr. GARCI´A of Illinois, Mr. TORRES of New York, Ms. NORTON, Mr. HUFFMAN, Ms. TLAIB, Mrs. NAPOLITANO, Mr. SOTO, Mr. GALLEGO, Mr. COHEN, Mr. BLUMENAUER, and Mr. MCGOVERN) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committee on Natural Resources, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee con- cerned RESOLUTION Acknowledging that the United States Supreme Court’s deci- sions in the Insular Cases and the ‘‘territorial incorpora- tion doctrine’’ are contrary to the text and history of the United States Constitution, rest on racial views and stereotypes from the era of Plessy v. Ferguson that have long been rejected, are contrary to our Nation’s most basic constitutional and democratic principles, and VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:34 Apr 21, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6652 E:\BILLS\HR314.IH HR314 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 2 •HRES 314 IH should be rejected as having no place in United States constitutional law. Whereas Associate Justices of the Supreme Court Neil Gorsuch and Sonia Sotomayor have agreed it ‘‘is past time to acknowledge the gravity’’ of the error of the Insu- lar Cases, and expressed the view ‘‘that the Constitu- tion’s application should never turn on . . . the misguided framework of the Insular Cases’’; Whereas territories have been an important part of the United States since the beginning of our Nation, starting with the Northwest Territory in 1787, with Chief Justice John Marshall writing for the Supreme Court in 1820 that ‘‘the United States’’ is ‘‘the name given to our great republic, which is composed of States and territories’’ (Loughborough v. Blake, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat.) 317, 319 (1820)); Whereas today the United States has 5 populated territories, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Is- lands of the United States, which together have a popu- lation of over 3,500,000 residents, equal to the popu- lation of the 5 smallest States combined, more than 95 percent of whom are racial or ethnic minorities; Whereas Puerto Rico and Guam have now been a part of the United States since 1898, American Samoa since 1900, the Virgin Islands of the United States since 1917, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands since 1986; Whereas, until the Insular Cases were decided in the early 1900s, the Supreme Court long recognized that Congress’ powers over the territories, while broad, were ‘‘not abso- VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:34 Apr 21, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR314.IH HR314 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 3 •HRES 314 IH lute and unlimited’’, but rather subject ‘‘to such restric- tions as are expressed in the Constitution’’ (Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U.S. 15, 44 (1885)); Whereas following the acquisition of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and other overseas territories in 1898, the Su- preme Court’s decisions in the Insular Cases broke from its prior precedent to establish a doctrine of territorial in- corporation, creating for the first time a distinction be- tween so-called ‘‘incorporated’’ territories, where the Con- stitution applies ‘‘in full’’, and ‘‘unincorporated’’ terri- tories, where the Constitution applies ‘‘only in part’’ (Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723, 757 (2008)); Whereas the judgment of the Court in Downes v. Bidwell (182 U.S. 244 (1901)), the most prominent of the Insu- lar Cases, was delivered by Justice Henry Billings Brown, the author of Plessy v. Ferguson’s doctrine of ‘‘separate but equal’’, who wrote that America’s newly ac- quired overseas territories were ‘‘inhabited by alien races, differing from us in religion, customs, . . . and modes of thought’’, making it impossible to govern ‘‘according to Anglo-Saxon principles’’; Whereas Justice Edward White, who in a separate 3-Justice plurality developed the territorial incorporation doctrine in Downes, expressed concerns over the ‘‘evils’’ of admit- ting ‘‘millions of inhabitants’’ of ‘‘unknown islands, peo- pled with an uncivilized race’’, who he believed would be ‘‘absolutely unfit’’ for citizenship; Whereas 4 Justices dissented in Downes, with Chief Justice Melville Fuller commenting that ‘‘[g]reat stress is thrown upon the word ‘incorporation,’ as if possessed of some oc- cult meaning’’, and Justice John Marshall Harlan ex- VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:34 Apr 21, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR314.IH HR314 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 4 •HRES 314 IH pressing that the ‘‘idea of ‘incorporation’ . . . is enveloped in some mystery which I am unable to unravel’’; Whereas Justice Harlan, who penned the lone dissent to Plessy v. Ferguson, also wrote a series of powerful dis- sents to the Insular Cases, declaring in Downes that ‘‘[t]he idea that this country may acquire territories any- where upon the earth, by conquest or treaty, and hold them as mere colonies or provinces—the people inhab- iting them to enjoy only such rights as Congress chooses to accord to them—is wholly inconsistent with the spirit and genius, as well as with the words, of the Constitu- tion’’; Whereas the Insular Cases and the territorial incorporation doctrine have long received significant criticism from the Supreme Court and a broad range of jurists and legal scholars; Whereas, in 2022, Justice Gorsuch declared that ‘‘It is past time to . . . admit what we know to be true: The Insular Cases have no foundation in the Constitution and rest in- stead on racial stereotypes. They deserve no place in our law.’’; Whereas Justice Gorsuch continued, ‘‘[T]he time has come to recognize that the Insular Cases rest on a rotten founda- tion. And I hope the day comes soon when the Court squarely overrules them. We should follow Justice Harlan and settle this question right.’’, and Justice Sotomayor agreed, emphasizing that the Insular Cases ‘‘were pre- mised on beliefs both odious and wrong’’; Whereas, nonetheless, just months later the Supreme Court surprised many court watchers by denying review of a VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:34 Apr 21, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR314.IH HR314 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 5 •HRES 314 IH case expressly asking ‘‘whether the Insular Cases should be overruled’’; Whereas the powerful statements by Justice Gorsuch and Justice Sotomayor followed a 2020 Supreme Court deci- sion that questioned the ‘‘continued validity’’ of the Insu- lar Cases, indicating ‘‘that the Insular Cases should not be further extended’’; Whereas Judge Juan Torruella, who served on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit from 1984 until his death in 2020, labeled the territorial incorpora- tion doctrine a ‘‘doctrine of separate and unequal’’, writ- ing that ‘‘the Insular Cases represent classic Plessy v. Ferguson legal doctrine and thought that should be eradicated from present-day constitutional reasoning’’ be- cause they run contrary to ‘‘the most basic precept for which this nation stands: the equality before the law of all its citizens’’; Whereas Chief Judge Gustavo Gelpı´, who has served on the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico since 2006, has called the Insular Cases’ territorial incorporation doctrine ‘‘a doctrine of pure judicial inven- tion, with absolutely no basis in the Constitution and one that is contrary to all judicial precedent and territorial practice’’; Whereas legal scholars with a wide range of views have criti- cized the Insular Cases and the territorial incorporation doctrine, with prominent originalist legal scholar Gary Lawson writing that ‘‘there is nothing in the Constitution that even intimates that express constitutional limitations on national power apply differently to different terri- tories’’, and leading Constitutional Law Professor San- VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:34 Apr 21, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR314.IH HR314 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 6 •HRES 314 IH ford Levinson calling the Insular Cases ‘‘central docu- ments in the history of American racism’’; Whereas the territorial incorporation doctrine established by the Insular Cases is still used to perpetuate the second- class treatment of Americans living in the territories, from the denial of citizenship, to the denial of voting rights, to the denial of equality in Federal benefits pro- grams; and Whereas the time has come to expressly reject the Insular Cases as both contrary to the Constitution’s text and his- tory and as incompatible with our Nation’s core values: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 1 (1) recognizes that America’s constitutional and 2 democratic principles apply throughout the United 3 States, including both States and territories; 4 (2) acknowledges that the Insular Cases are 5 contrary to the text and history of the Constitution; 6 (3) acknowledges that the Insular Cases are rel- 7 ics of the racial views of an earlier era that have no 8 place in our Nation today; and 9 (4) rejects the Insular Cases and their applica- 10 tion to all present and future cases and controversies 11 involving the application of the Constitution in 12 United States territories. 13 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:34 Apr 21, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\HR314.IH HR314 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS