MI. ANDERSON. Not to exceed 21.

Mr. CRALEY. No minimum, so that theoretically, you could have how many as a minimum?

Mr. ANDERSON. There is no minimum specified. You could end up with one.

Mr. CRALEY. You could set up conceivably one district. Let's assume hypothetically that you set up 15, do you then have to have at least 15 candidates from those 15 districts? In other words, one candidate from each of those districts?

Mr. ANDERSON. I would assume that if you have 15 districts and you yes, you would have to have 15 candidates.

Mr. CRALEY. And then the other six would duplicate. Some districts might have two or three?

Mr. ANDERSON. Possible.

Mr. CRALEY. Assuming that there are 15 districts, does the voter vote for all 21 or does he vote for just the people in his district?

Mr. ANDERSON. It would be the latter. This would be provided by the legislature of Guam in their redistricting, I would assume. Mr. CRALEY. You say the latter, which means that he would just vote for the people in his own district?

Mrs. VAN CLEVE. That would be my construction of the language,

yes.

Mr. CRALEY. You interpret that from line 5 on page 2?

Mrs. VAN CLEVE. Not solely from that language. I would construe all of subsection (b) as saying that district lines have to be drawn, that within that district, there can be any number of people running, or any number of seats assigned to that district.

Mr. CRALEY. By the local legislature.

Mrs. VAN CLEVE. Yes, that the total of number of seats assigned to all districts could not exceed 21. That any voter could vote for as many seats as were assigned to his district, but not for any candidates running for districts not his own.

Mr. CRALEY. Is this the intent then of this bill to restrict a voter in a district, restrict him to voting for just the candidates and the number of candidates that is allowed to win that district?

Mrs. VAN CLEVE. That is correct. As we read subsection (b) it would bar at large candidates for the whole island; that is no single candidate would be susceptible to receiving votes from people throughout Guam. He would be assigned to a particular district only.

Mr. CRALEY. Yes, but the technicality I am making is this, Can I in district 12 vote for not only the candidates in my own district, but express a vote for the candidates in the other 11 districts, let's say, there are 12 districts, and I am in district 12? Can I vote for candidates in all 12 districts?

Mrs. VAN CLEVE. The purpose of this bill, and if we have achieved our purpose, then the result of the bill would be, that an elector in district 12 could vote solely for candidates running in district 12 and not for candidates in any other district.

Mrs. REID. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. CRALEY. Yes.

Mrs. REID. I am a little confused. You mean to say that there could be more than one-this could be so designated by the legislature that more than one person could represent one district?

Mrs. VAN CLEVE. That is correct. I believe that would be a proper result from this bill. Differently stated, if the legislature were to continue with 21 members, if the legislative action giving rise to the redistricting should result in 15 districts, there could in fact be several districts with 2, some perhaps with 3, representatives for that district. The essential point would be that the population of the districts be respected; that is, that there be three times as many people in a district with three representatives as in a single district with one, because that is what the proviso concerning equal protection of the laws would require.

It would further be necessary that each voter in a district to which more than one representative was assigned be permitted to vote for the full number of people running from that district.

Mrs. REID. Will the gentleman yield further?

Mr. CRALEY. I yield.

Mrs. REID. This is going a bit further, but let's suppose that Guam would eventually assume the responsibility for all or part of the trust territory. Then what provision would be made for representatives from Saipan, Yap, or Truk.

Mrs. VAN CLEVE. It would be necessary for the Congress to turn to that question and modify whatever the pertinent legislation is in order to accommodate the expanded territory of Guam, I believe.

Mr. O'BRIEN. If the gentleman will yield. In that case, wouldn't it be possible that you might have a legislative body representing just Guam, and another legislative body on which Guam would be represented, representing the whole area?

Mrs. VAN CLEVE. You are suggesting somewhat the pattern that now exists in the trust territory, where there are within the districts, local legislative bodies and where there is one territorywide legislative body. Indeed, that would be possible, and it would seem, offhand, very sensible in light of the peculiarities of local problems.

Mr. CRALEY. I have a question here, and I am no lawyer and I am not certain I am even qualified to speak on it, but going back to page 2, line 5, the bill reads, "Provided further, That every voter in any district election shall be permitted to vote for the whole number of persons to be elected in that election."

To me and maybe it is a case of interpretation-to me, this means that I have the right to elect all 21 representatives.

Mrs. VAN CLEVE. If the language is susceptible to that construction, it is badly drafted. We certainly did not mean that. What we are concerned with here is the current factual situation in the Virgin Islands and a potential situation of a similar sort in Guam, both of which we believe constitute denials of equal protection as that phase has been defined under the 14th amendment by the courts. In the Virgin Islands now, and this matter will be dealt with tomorrow afternoon, the legislature of 11 members is made up of district representatives from each island, 2 from St. Thomas, 2 from St. Croix, 1 from St. John. The remaining six are elected at large, but, under the organic act, no voter may vote for more than two of those six. The result of that provision, it has been alleged, and others can speak far better to the factual point than I, but it has been alleged that this results in depriving certain voters in the Virgin Islands, in fact, of representation, because it is at least theoretically possible, and it will be alleged that this has occurred, I believe, that the vast

majority will vote for candidates one and two, who acquire many more votes than they need; that these votes are, in effect, wasted; and candidates three through six are thereby elected or could be elected by a minority. This provision is designed to say that, if, in any district, more than one person is to be elected, there can be no gimmick by which every voter will not be permitted to vote for every, seat to be filled.

Mr. O'BRIEN. Will the gentleman yield at this point?

Mr. CRALEY. Yes.

Mr. O'BRIEN. Mrs. Van Cleve, wouldn't it straighten it out if we just repeated the word "district" in that sentence. In other words it now reads "that every voter in any district election shall be permitted to vote for the whole number of persons to be elected in that election." I think that has caused the confusion here, because we are thinking of somebody in ward 11, or whatever you call it, district 11, voting for somebody, if we put in that district election. I think it would spell it out.

Mrs. VAN CLEVE. I believe that would meet the problem correctly; yes.

Mr. BURTON. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. CRALEY. I yield.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Chairman, this construction has been bothering me, like it has my friend, Mr. Craley. Do you really have a district election? I want to ask that. Aren't these people likely to be elected in a general election? Ir you are going to vote for a Governor of Guam, aren't you likely to be electing a legislature at the same time, and to say this is a district election may cause some complications.

I was going to recommend, Mr. Chairman, that Mrs. Van Cleve think it over a bit, and maybe come up with some different wording and if the gentleman will yield further, I would say that the way this bill is written we really don't have much assurance of what kind of legislature we are going to have in Guam.

For instance, I could ask you, Will there be at-large seats? Will there be 21 districts? Will there be 15 or would there be 12? I don't think anybody can answer that. The Secretary, too, Mr. Chairman, here in his statement says the enactment of this bill would, "guarantee appropriate representation to all geographic areas." How do we know it would?

is

Mr. O'BRIEN. If the gentleman will yield, I think our difficulty

Mr. BURTON. There is nothing in the bill, Mr. Chairman, that says a man has to be a resident in the district from which he is elected. They could install a British system. You could have 15 or 20 people elected from Naha and assign them a district. There are all sorts of possibilities here.

Mr. O'BRIEN. What we are trying to do, if the gentleman will yield, in 1950 we said to the people of Guam that you must elect your legislators at large, and we did that because there weren't any stable-let me describe it as "stable"-districts. Correct? Mr. BURTON. Yes.

Mr. O'BRIEN. Now, we are saying we are not telling them how to do it, but if you don't like it at large, if you want to move in and do it as a district plan, as we have in most of the States for legislators, then you may do it with certain safeguards, somewhat limited in

number. It could be that they will decide it is all right to go along with what they have now.

Mr. BURTON. That may very well be true and, if that is the case, we are not doing what the Secretary says here, providing "more adequately for representation of the minority." You are not doing that, and you don't guarantee, as the Secretary says we are going to, "guarantee appropriate representation to all geographic areas," and there is nothing in here about residency.

Mr. O'BRIEN. No; but if the gentleman will yield, this legislation doesn't guarantee that, but it gives the opportunity, which the Legislature of Guam now lacks, to provide better recognition for the minorities.

Mr. BURTON. Yes, sir; I understand that. But I am just pointing out to the chairman that the language that the Secretary uses in his statement, as I read the bill, is incorrect.

Mrs. REID. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. CRALEY. I yield. Go ahead.

Mrs. REID. The one sentence you read, Mr. Burton, line 5, on page 2-I would like to ask Mrs. Van Cleve if perhaps line 7, instead of "elections," use the word "districts." Would that clarify it?

Mrs. VAN CLEVE. I believe that would be helpful, but it does give rise to the problem that Mr. Burton discussed of apparently suggesting that the elections for the legislature are to be held at a time other than the general election, and certainly this was not intended. It would be expected that the legislature and the Governor and any other officials to be elected would all be elected at the general election, as they have been in the past.

I would be glad, the Interior Department generally would be glad, to look at this again to avoid the kinds of ambiguities with which you are concerned. I would say with respect, Mr. Burton, to the several questions with which you began your recital of a moment ago, the answer, to all save one, is indeed that the bill does not make provision for this. It was frankly not intended to. As the chairman has suggested, the purpose of the bill with the essentially single guarantee of being sure that the constitutional rules are met, would pass this responsibility to the Guam Legislature.

This is in keeping with our general view that the legislature can sensibly cope with this.

The one question which is answered affirmatively has to do with your first question, which was, I believe, whether some members. could still continue to be elected at large. I don't believe that would be possible under H.R. 13294. I believe that once the districting technique is adopted, then there could be no further at-large elections within Guam.

Mr. BURTON. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. CRALEY. Yes.

Mr. BURTON. Mrs. Van Cleve, I would like to respectfully recommend that the Department of Interior take another look at that whole section on page 2 of the bill because I do believe that one of the purposes of representation is to insure that minority groups, smaller groups, do have an opportunity to voice themselves and to have some representation, if possible, This can only be done through a geographic districting. I am speaking now as a Representative from the State of Utah, and if you had the Congress elected at large,

I would never be here. And Utah would never have a Representative, and the only reason that the gentleman now in the chair is here-Mr. Rivers is because we have this geographic requirement.

Mr. BURTON. In my study of the Constitution, as I recall, there is nothing that makes the member be a resident of the district that elects him. But custom pretty well demands this. I think in Guam it would just come about naturally that the people would be running from the district. I am just wondering if we shouldn't drop this word "district" election because looking down the road now, we are going to let them elect their Governor. This is really going to be a general election, and to throw in the word "district," I think, as my friend says, merely confuses it. I would like to see this geographic representation that the Secretary mentioned be guaranteed.

That is all. Thank you.

Mr. ANDERSON. Mr. Chairman, I recognize that we have some weaknesses here, and with your permission, we would like to take another crack at this redrafting.

Mr. RIVERS. We would like to have you submit the suggested clarifications or substitute language so we can have that available at our markup session. But we are not going to call an additional session. We want the benefit of your advice without another hearing. So bring us your suggested clarifications, if that is all right with you.

Now while we are on this, I would like to ask Mrs. Van Cleve about the difference in the bill introduced by Mr. O'Brien, H.R. 13294, and that introduced by Mr. Craley, H.R. 13298.

Mrs. VAN CLEVE. So far as we have been able to establish in the very few minutes that were available for us to compare these bills before the hearing, Mr. Rivers, it appears to us that the only substantive distinction is that under Mr. Craley's bill it would appear to be possible to perpetuate some members on an at-large basis, while the remainder would be districted, whereas under ours, no at-large candidates would be possible.

Mr. RIVERS. I observe that is 21 members specified in Mr. O'Brien's bill, and there is no 21 specified in Mr. Craley's bill. Is that another difference?

Mrs. VAN CLEVE. I think not. I believe the 21 provision in our bill is simply a repetition of existing law, and that the portion which Mr. Craley's bill would amend is subject to that 21 provision.

Mr. RIVERS. And the 21 provision still prevails under existing law and Mr. Craley's proposed amendment wouldn't affect that. Mrs. VAN CLEVE. That is right.

Mr. RIVERS. So we arrive at the same result with the two bills. Mrs. VAN CLEVE. That is right.

Mr. RIVERS. The only difference, the way you understand Mr. Craley's bill, there could be some member or members at-large instead of all of them being districted?

Mrs. VAN CLEVE. That was our recent and very quick construction.
Mr. RIVERS. I yield to the member from Pennsylvania.
Mr. CRALEY. Will the chairman yield at that point?

This is not my interpretation of the bill H.R. 13298. Basically in reading H.R. 13294, based on line 5, page 2, I had come to the conclusion that you were permitting people to elect all the candidates but specifying that they do so just by district. My legislation is quite similar to yours, but with this exception. You will notice that