Why U.S. territories don’t have full voting rights

John Oliver dealt with the second class citizenship that members of territorial possessions have in this country. He made some good points such as highlighting how it's wrong to talk about Sotomayor's* parents "immigrating" from Puerto Rico, like it is another country. He also pointed out how they cannot vote for the President or have voting membership in Congress. This includes places like Guam where the U.S. military is a major employer. And, residents of "American" Samoa aren't even American citizens but  "nationals." [See here for how their different treatment, including a tax break, affects the ACA and was raised in the King case.]

There was a bit of confusion though -- we started with the Insular Cases, which held the residents of new possessions obtained after Spanish American War  did not obtain full constitutional rights by right.  It was unclear from the discussion that they got any rights -- they did -- there was some unclear split between fundamental and non-fundamental rights. Racist assumptions might assume they weren't fit for juries, but they still received basic due process rights.  What is left of these cases is unclear.

The cases do help to continue the "national" label by limiting the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to states and territories in the continental U.S. -- the cases were decided, after all, before several states existed yet.  As noted by Boumedine v. Bush: "It may well be that over time the ties between the United States and any of its unincorporated Territories strengthen in ways that are of constitutional significance."  IOW, at least as applied to individual rights, the cases should be seen as past their due date.  This includes a child being born in Samoa not being a citizen.

The voting issue is a bit different.  The Constitution sets up a system where states have representation in Congress and via the Electoral College, the right to vote for President. It took an amendment, rather recently given its creation in the 1790s, for D.C. to just have an ability to vote for President. And, the amendment unfairly limits even that by only giving it the amount of votes of the least populous state, even it would have more strictly by population.  D.C. has a non-voting delegate in Congress. 

The Insular Cases, however bad and out of date they might be, is not the reason why over four million people cannot vote for President or for a voting delegate in Congress. It would likely take a constitutional amendment, as it did for D.C. (and that was incomplete), to do the trick.  The example of D.C. was not cited, which is a major oversight. The show was quite right to note that in the last hundred years we accomplished a lot. A constitutional amendment to deal with voting rights should be possible. 

The American Samoa "national" thing doesn't need a constitutional amendment since either judicial or congressional relief is possible. Finally, the "why is this still a thing" was logically Daylight Savings Time.  I won't dwell on it, but the discussion -- including its origins -- seemed a bit questionable.  Overall, the logic of the thing does remain questionable.

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* Justice Sotomayor has already shown a special concern for Native Americans and  should be a good advocate for this cause.  The Supreme Court doesn't have many cases that deal with territorial status as such  though do recall a case involving territorial judges.  She wrote a long paper on Puerto Rico -- though as I recall it was directly concerning a rather obscure issue -- and is time for the Supreme Court to address this issue.

If habeas corpus should apply to potential enemy combatants in Gitmo, a subject of more than one case, the rights of citizens or even "nationals" should be clearly protected.