A report by “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” on the inequalities between mainland America and its territories was cited in an appellate court decision on Wednesday.
The citation was first reported by the Above the Law, a legal news and commentary blog.
U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Marsha S. Berzon cited Oliver in her decision, Paeste v. Guam, a class-action lawsuit by Guam residents against a Guam tax refund program.
She was appointed to Ninth Circuit appellate court in 2000.
Watch the original clip, from HBO, below:
For what it’s worth, Americans from American Samoa pronounce their home SAM-oa, not, as Oliver (and I and pretty much everyone else) does, sam-Oa.
Personally, I’ve believed it was time to place before the territories a simple ballot measure and say either you join the US fully or leave he US, but no more territories.
I saw the original clip on HBO. His show has become must see teevee at our house.
Maybe there could be a sentence or two describing the context of the citation?
That might be helpful…
I clicked through to the ATL link, but there wasn’t much more there. And then made the mistake of checking out the comments, reminding me of why I generally stick to the comments section here at TPM - trolls are apparently determined to destroy the Internet for everyone.
It’s why we can’t have nice things here in America.
The link to the actual case was helpful:
Such a clever idea! Then they developed a system of “need” ranking for those who wanted and might get their money back sometime sort of soon. If you had medical needs you were theoretically first in line to get your money back, and if your need was general financial need, then your case went to the back of the line. People being people, it worked out that when and if you got you money back depended on who you knew and likely, hmmm…, other considerations.
So a group of taxpayers sued and the original court ruled that the case could be brought as a class action and that Guam needed to scrap this refund system as a violation of equal protection. Guam appealed based on it’s citizens not being covered by equal protection, that the parties bringing suit were not “persons” under applicable law. The appeals court disagreed and ruled in favor of the taxpayers. The reference to John Oliver came here in a list of sources of criticism of the legal status of the U.S. territories:
They even listed a youtube url!
We American-English-ize words. I don’t pronounce croissant the way the French do.