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Clinton's Constitutional Conundrum

Over the past eight years, the most powerful Democratic argument against GOP-sponsored constitutional amendments on such issues as flag-burning or gay marriage has been a procedural one: the Constitution is too important to modify for insignificant issues (flag-burning) or proposals inserted for partisan political gain (anti-gay marriage). In recent weeks, however, the Clinton campaign has proposed two constitutional amendments that almost make the GOP efforts look Madisonian by comparison.

The first initiative came the day before the Guam caucus, when Senator Clinton gave an interview to the Guam media and said that Guam citizens should be able to vote in presidential elections: “It seems to me that it is long past time that we remedy this inequity. It doesn’t reflect American values; it is out of step with the move toward equality and full citizenship rights, and I will do everything I can to make sure the people of Guam’s votes are counted. It seems to me that it is long past time that we remedy this inequity. It doesn't reflect American values; it is out of step with the move towards equality and full citizenship rights, and I will do everything I can to make sure the people of Guam's vote are counted.” Of course, Congress cannot simply grant territories the right to vote in presidential election; such as change could be implemented only through constitutional amendment, as occurred with the District of Columbia and the 23rd amendment.

Clinton’s remarks attracted little media attention, but ABC’s Jake Tapper noticed them, and pressed the campaign for an explanation. Clinton spokesperson Mo Elleithee replied that, indeed, the senator desired a constitutional amendment to implement her Guam scheme.

Campaigning yesterday in Puerto Rico, Clinton raised the presidential voting question again, this time for Puerto Ricans. In a rally before Puerto Rican voters in Aguadilla, she affirmed, “I believe you should have a vote in picking the president.”

Perhaps the Constitution should be amended to allow Puerto Ricans and Guamanians to vote in presidential elections. But Clinton has been in the Senate for eight years, and she doesn’t seem to have raised the issue. There’s something off-putting about a U.S. senator first proposing constitutional amendments a few days before the targets of these amendments go to the polls.

Moreover, the Clinton constitutional amendments raise a host of unanswered questions. For instance, how, precisely, would electoral votes for Guam and Puerto Rico be allocated?

Guam has fewer than 200,000 people, about a third of the size of Wyoming, the least populous state. Along the lines of the D.C. amendment model, should Guam receive three electoral votes? If not, the Guam amendment would represent a break from more than 200 years of constitutional tradition. If so, the ratio of Electoral College votes to voters would be lower in Guam than in any state of the union—making Guamanians, in effect, the most proportionally influential citizens of the United States in presidential elections.

And what about Puerto Rico, whose population of nearly four million falls between that of Kentucky (eight electoral votes) and Oregon (seven)? Should Puerto Rico receive seven electoral votes? If so, is it appropriate for a territory to have more electoral votes than 20 states? If not, and Puerto Rico (like D.C. and, apparently, Guam) would only get three Electoral College votes, would Clinton suggest that the votes of individual Puerto Ricans are proportionally less important than the votes of other Americans?

And what about the Virgin Islands? Clinton seems not to have proposed a constitutional amendment to allow V.I. citizens to vote in presidential elections. Presumably that oversight wasn’t because the territory is strongly pro-Obama (he carried the primary 90-10). So what was her rationale for Guam and Puerto Rico to receive constitutional amendments, but not the Virgin Islands? Or the Northern Mariana Islands? Or American Samoa?

It appears as if the Clinton campaign is going to come up short, but perhaps Senator Clinton can work on these amendments in the next session of Congress. Somehow, however, I doubt that she’ll be as interested in making sure that Guamanians can vote for the presidency if she’s not on the presidential ballot.