In his satirical HBO news and current events late-night television talk show, John Oliver, host of “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” presented a 13-minute segment Sunday highlighting the plight of residents living in U.S. territories as it relates to their voting rights. The segment was in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the March on Selma, which took place in 1965 to give voice to the voting rights of Black Americans, and was re-enacted in Selma, Ala. on March 7, 2015.
In the YouTube clip, sent to VI Consortium from HBO, Virgin Islands Delegate to Congress Stacey Plaskett appears at the :27 mark giving testimony on the House Floor concerning the fact that 4.1 million people living in the U.S. island territories, including the U.S. Virgin Islands, do not have the right to vote for president or have a voting representative in Congress.
“As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Selma this week, and the subsequent passage of the Voting Rights Act, there are still American citizens today who do not have equal voting rights. These are citizens of America’s island territories — the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Northern Marianas,” Rep. Plaskett said.
As the video cuts back to Oliver, he adds, “Yes, American citizens living in U.S. island territories do not get to vote for president. That’s the kind of unsettling facts that deep down you knew, but chose not to think about.”
Oliver decries the laws banning citizens of U.S. island territories from voting for president as unjustifiable and ridiculed the 1901 Supreme Court ruling in the Insular Cases that said the territories were inhabited by “alien races” who were likely incapable of understanding “Anglo-Saxon principles.”
Plaskett has long denounced the century-old laws as racist and steeped in xenophobia.
See the full segment directly below:
Tags: delegate to congress stacey plaskett, stacey plaskett
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