New faces in Washington

United States

By David North

Despite the smooth transition in the US, the island territories where politics is more personal, budgets tighter and feuds moss-encrusted are quite different

NEW faces, new issues, and old feuds marked the start of the political year for the United States flag islands. One of the new faces in Washington is Bob Under wood, the newly-elected Democratic delegate from Guam. Soft spoken, and gentle in manner, he successfully cam paigned as a stronger supporter of Chamorro rights than his opponent, sitting delegate Ben Blaz (a Republican).

Among the issues Underwood plans to pursue in Washington are seeking adop tion of the Guam Commonwealth Bill by the Congress, the return of excess Defense Department lands to the Guam Govern ment, and the granting of World War II indemnities by the US government. A clause in the US-Japan Peace Treaty made it impossible for US citizens on Guam, unlike residents of other once- Japanese occupied islands, to seek these funds from Japan, hence Underwood’s interest in making it possible - 40 years later for these Guam-based claims to be filed with the US government.

As soon as Underwood arrived in Washington he and his new colleague from Puerto Rico button-holed all the other freshman Democrats in the House of Representatives lining up their sup port for giving the territorial delegates limited voting privileges on the floor of the House.

While the Democrat caucus quickly supported the extended voting privileges, that action set off a firestorm of contro versy, as the Republicans, a perpetual minority in the House, noticed that the five delegates getting the new powers were all Democrats. They complained that three of the five jurisdictions had, by Congressional standards, tiny popu lations (about 50,000 in American Samoa, for instance, vs. 590,000 for the typical Mainland Congressman.) They also noted that of the five delegates, only the one for the District of Columbia, spoke for voters who paid federal taxes.

The other four delegates represent Am erican Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

Presumably the Republican oppo

sition would have been muted had Ben Blaz held his seat.

After a barrage of largely negative media attention, and after the House Democratic leadership had watered down the provision a bit, the House members voted, mostly along party lines, to give the delegates the right to vote in

the Committee of the Whole. Both Faleomavaega and Underwood joined in the televised debate.

Another new face for the islands in Washington is that of Bruce Babbitt, former Governor of Arizona and the next Secretary of Interior, the Cabinet officer with the greatest power over the US flag islands. Known as an ardent

In a tight financial situation where contractors for the Amercan Samoa government

are routinely not paid for

months at a time, and where the lack of funds sometimes delays the arrival of needed drugs, the departing governor saw to it that his son-in-law was paid for future work not yet performed.

environmentalist, a keen intellect and a lack-lustre public speaker, Babbitt failed to sway the Democrat Party when he sought the Presidential nomination four year ago, but he apparently impressed his fellow Governor, Bill Clinton. Re placing the laid-back Manuel Lujan, Babbitt’s views on island issues are not yet known.

A third new face has not appeared out of the mists of the transition process, that is, the new Assistant Secretary of Interior for Territorial and International Affairs, a post held during the Bush years by Stella Guerra.

While the transition process in Wash ington takes much longer than it does in most parliamentary democracies, it has been, in recent decades, a time of

relatively little friction. The losers know that they have lost, and generally leave the scene in good order. Bush and Clinton, for example, have been civil with each other, and each has deferred to the other in significant ways. (Clinton supported Bush’s decision to intervene in Somalia, for example, and Bush has made no major budgetary moves that will tie the hands of the incoming Democrats.) The scene has been quite different in Pago Pago, where politics are much more personal, budgets much tighter, and the feuds are more moss-encrusted. (The departing Republican Governor, Peter Tali Coleman, and the arriving Demo cratic Governor, A.P. Lutali, have been bitter political rivals since the 19705.) In a tight financial situation in which contractors for the American Samoa Government (ASG) are routinely not paid for months at a time, and where the lack of funds sometimes delays the arrival of needed drugs at the Territory’s hospital, the departing Governor saw to it that his son-in-law, ASG’s Washington Representative Fred Radewagen, was paid for future work not yet performed.

Similarly, Coleman renewed the contract of his son and chief-of-staff, Dyke Coleman, for two more years even though the incoming Lutali is highly likely to fire both of Coleman’s relatives, and will then have to scramble to find funds to pay their replacements.

In a comparable move, Coleman’s police chief gave post-election pay in creases to a number of favoured officers, said to be Coleman supporters, another personnel action which the incoming Governor may seek to unravel.

Coleman’s supporters said that Lutali’s final months as Governor four years earlier were also marked by sudden pay increases for favored staffers (but apparently no family members were involved.)