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Esta página no está disponible en español. THE ALLENTOWN MORNING CALLThis Man Is An Island's VoiceLawsuit Fights For U.S. Territories' RightsBy Matthew Hay Brown
December 24, 2002
Krim Ballentine sued in part because he wants to vote for U.S. president. (SEAN MCCOY FOR THE Allentown Morning Call) ---------- CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin Islands/As he looks at it now, it wasn't any one affront, no single, galling injustice that got to Krim Ballentine. It was the multitude of little irritations that kept piling up. There were the border checks at the sleepy airport here, the immigration officers who would ask to see his identification before allowing him to travel to the mainland. The difference in federal benefits for residents here -- the reduction in Medicaid for the poor, the ineligibility for supplemental Social Security for the disabled -- also rankled. And of course, not being able to vote for president, or send a voting representative to Congress. That's been pretty hard to take. Now the 66-year-old Ballentine, an Army veteran and retired U.S. marshal who settled here 17 years ago, is suing the federal government for the rights he says he is being denied while he lives in this unincorporated U.S. territory. Representing himself -- his wife is a former attorney general here -- he is challenging a system upheld by a century of court decisions he says treat Virgin Islanders as property, not citizens. If he prevails, court rulings could reshape Washington's relationship with all of its territories. Citizens not only here but also in Puerto Rico, Guam and other overseas possessions could gain votes in the Electoral College, representatives to Congress and more money in the federal budget. It's a big if. The self-styled "philosophical practitioner," a frequent op-ed columnist and sometime radio talk-show host, suspects his complaint might be viewed by some as frivolous. For all the years he spent around the law, providing security during trials, watching attorneys argue cases and listening to judges issue rulings, he says his own suit may be poorly drafted. But at the federal courthouse here in the territorial capital, Ballentine appears to have found a powerful friend. "The United States would reject as "specious' the plaintiff's efforts to question the inferior and unequal nature of United States citizenship in the Virgin Islands," U.S. Judge Thomas K. Moore wrote when lawyers for the government moved the case be dismissed. "I am not willing to override so cavalierly the plaintiff's sensibilities, for I share them." One-man revolution Along the narrow, palm-shaded streets of Charlotte Amalie, high-ceilinged colonial homes in pastel greens, pinks and yellows stand with broad doors open to welcome the tropical sun. Jewelry shops and designer boutiques, souvenir stands and rum stores, roadside bars and jerk shacks call to cruise-ship passengers. Beyond town, lush green mountains, white sand beaches and turquoise waters beckon. This quiet territory, purchased peacefully from Denmark in 1917, seems an unlikely base for the revolution Ballentine is contemplating. In contrast to their neighbors in larger and more developed Puerto Rico, where discontent over status remains the central organizing principal to local politics, the 120,000 residents spread among the islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John have expressed little interest in change. The strongest economy in the Caribbean relies on close ties with the mainland, which sends more than 80 percent of the tourists who visit, and buys more than 90 percent of the refined petroleum, aluminum and rum produced here. The federal government returns income and excise taxes to the territory and adds hundreds of millions of dollars annually in grants, salaries and other payments. But the conversation between Washington and Charlotte Amalie is one-sided. Residents here may not vote for president. Their voice in Congress is limited to a nonvoting delegate to the House of Representatives. The poor receive reduced Medicaid benefits, and the disabled are ineligible for supplemental Social Security. Travelers must pass through customs and immigration checkpoints on the way to the mainland. The territory is one of 16 still included on the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories, possessions targeted in the international drive to end colonialism. Still, in five referendums on status since 1954, voters here have favored maintaining the current relationship with the United States. The last plebiscite, in 1993, failed to attract enough participants to generate an official result. "The turnout showed to what extent people are concerned about it," says Donna Christian-Christensen, the territory's delegate to Congress. "The interest in the general population was just not there then, and I don't see that the momentum for a change of status has changed at all." Marilyn Krigger, co-chairwoman of the commission that sponsored the 1993 vote, says some residents may be frustrated at not having a presidential vote or being made to go through border controls. But she says most are probably more preoccupied by the drop in tourism since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the climbing rate of violent crime in the territory and the loss of accreditation this year by local public schools. "The concern about status is to a large degree here an intellectual one," says Krigger, professor emerita of history at the University of the Virgin Islands. "It's only intellectuals, very well-educated people and a few politicians who are really concerned." Enter Ballentine. The St. Louis native came here in 1973 to supervise courtroom security after the notorious Fountain Valley massacre of eight visitors to St. Croix. He returned for good in 1985. Ballentine's complaint hinges on his reading of the one section of the Constitution that describes relations with U.S. possessions. The passage gives Congress "Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory and other Property belonging to the United States." "Congress can make all the laws it wants about property," Ballentine says. "I'm not property. I'm a U.S. citizen. That's a birthright given to me by God and my parents, and nowhere in the Constitution does it say that Congress has the authority to give it, or take it away." Ballentine speaks over dinner at a local hotel. In the next room, members of the territorial Senate are meeting to choose leaders for the 2003 session. One by one, legislators emerge from behind closed doors to shake his hand. Local leaders packed the waterfront courthouse on St. Thomas in March to hear Ballentine argue his case. Also appearing, at Moore's request, were representatives of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Law Clinic at Yale Law School. Representing the clinic, Elizabeth Brundige told Moore that the United States is violating both the U.N. Charter and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by failing to grant Virgin Islanders their full rights. "Someday, our nation will look back on its treatment of the Virgin Islands and other non-self-governing territories with the same shame with which we now look at slavery and segregation," the clinic wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief. A long shot Guessing at how Moore will rule has become a favorite game among territorial leaders. In his response to the government motion to dismiss, the judge wrote critically of the Insular Cases, the series of Supreme Court decisions at the turn of the last century that continue to form the basis for relations between the United States and its possessions. In those opinions, written after the United States had acquired Puerto Rico and the Philippines after the Spanish-American War, court justices supported reduced rights for the "alien races" or "savages" who mightrequire a period of "pupilage and dependence" on being absorbed into the "American Empire." "Mr. Ballentine," Moore wrote, "reminds us that the nature and extent of the citizenship of residents of the Virgin Islands have been controlled up to now by a thoroughly ossified set of cases marked by the intrinsically racist imperialism of a previous era of United States colonial expansionism." But it is unclear whether Moore has the authority to reverse the system. In a similar case two years ago, a district court judge ruled that Puerto Ricans had the right to vote in the 2000 presidential elections and ordered Congress to count the eight electoral votes that would result. Puerto Rican participation could have reversed the closely contested race between George W. Bush and Al Gore, but the ruling was overturned by an appeals court before the election. Paul Leary, a professor emeritus of political science at UVI who has written in support of Ballentine's case in his newspaper column here, says Moore's hands are tied. "When he does opine, I think he is going to make strong statement about outmoded nature of insular cases," Leary said. "But he's limited as a lower-court federal judge to prevailing interpretation of the law, and there's never been a significant challenge to the insular cases upheld by the Supreme Court. "What's curious to me is that he took the case in the first place, and used it as a vehicle to air these issues. I think he's doing his best to stir things up a bit." Yale clinic director James Silk sees reason in Ballentine's complaint. But given the conservative nature of the courts, he says, even if Moore were to rule in his favor, the case would be unlikely to survive the probable appeal. "The chances for it to affect the other territories are marginal," Silk says. "But if you take the long view, the arguments have substantial force in terms of the government of these territories." Ballentine already is collecting money for an appeal. He says his wife, Rosalie Simmonds Ballentine, would represent him in the next round. He would relish an opportunity to take his complaint to the Supreme Court. "This is the last argument," he says. "Either you're going to have to call me property or you're going to have to call me a citizen." THE 'AMERICAN EMPIRE' Residents born in these possessions are U.S. citizens but may not vote for president and have no voting representation in Congress. American Samoa, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands are among the 16 possessions on the U.N. list of non-self-governing territories. American Samoa Population: 70,000 Pacific islands granted by Britain and Germany in 1899 treaty Unorganized, unincorporated territory Guam Population: 160,000 Pacific island ceded by Spain in the 1898 Treaty of Paris (held by Japan from 1941 to 1944) Organized, unincorporated territory Puerto Rico Population: 3.96 million Caribbean island invaded by United States in 1898, ceded by Spain in the Treaty of Paris Commonwealth (in Spanish, Estado Libre Asociado: "Associated Free State") U.S. Virgin Islands Population: 120,000 Caribbean islands purchased from Denmark in 1917 Organized, unincorporated territory Source: CIA World Factbook, United Nations
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