This year the president of the Federal Bar Association is U.S. District Judge Gustavo Gelpi of the District of Puerto Rico. As a law student at Suffolk University Law School and resident of Boston, Judge Gelpi was permitted to vote in U.S. presidential elections. He is a U.S. citizen. But when he returned to Puerto Rico to practice law, he was not, and is not, even as a sitting federal judge, entitled to vote in a U.S. presidential election.
This strange situation is not the result of any statute, but of decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court known as “the insular cases,” which were decided from 1901 to 1905. These cases answered the question “Does the Constitution follow the flag?” and found that constitutional rights did not automatically extend to Puerto Ricans, even if they are U.S. citizens. Unless a territory is “incorporated” into the United States, like Alaska and Hawaii, U.S. citizens there cannot vote in a U.S. presidential election. This “insular” doctrine is based on racism and a betrayal of the democratic values enshrined in the Constitution.
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