Nebraska social media limits, lab-grown meat ban, domestic abuse survivor help, 28 more bills pass
A trio of legislative bills passed just hours before the end of the 2024 summer special session related to property taxes are prepared to be ceremoniously signed by Gov. Jim Pillen. Aug. 20, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)
LINCOLN — Nebraska state senators sent 31 bills Wednesday to the governor for his approval, including measures requiring age verification to use social media, banning lab-grown meat, helping domestic violence survivors and outlawing the use of credit card skimmers.
The bills that passed included Legislative Bill 383, from State Sen. Tanya Storer of Whitman, requiring that, starting in July 2026, anyone wishing to create a social media account in Nebraska must prove they are 18 years old or older. Younger users would need parental permission. A parent would also need to prove they are 18 years old or older.
LB 383 also includes the provisions of LB 172, from State Sen. Brian Hardin of Gering, outlawing using artificial intelligence or computer generation to create pornographic images or videos depicting someone younger than 18 years old, or knowingly and intentionally receiving such content.
Both measures were priorities of Gov. Jim Pillen and Attorney General Mike Hilgers, as was LB 140 from State Sen. Rita Sanders of Bellevue.
LB 140 would require all of Nebraska's 245 school districts to prohibit student use of cellphones and other personal electronic communication devices during most parts of the school day beginning this fall. School districts would retain wide latitude in implementing such a policy. Most already have one.
LB 383 passed 46-3. LB 140 passed 48-1.
Lawmakers also approved LB 246, from State Sen. Barry DeKay of Niobrara at Pillen's request, to ban the sale of lab-grown meat. Some lawmakers, including conservative State Sen. Merv Riepe of Ralston, as well as the Nebraska Farm Bureau, preferred to label rather than ban the products, which aren't currently available in Nebraska markets.
LB 246 passed 38-11 and would take effect three months after lawmakers adjourn. The last day is scheduled for June 9.
Lawmakers also advanced housing supports for survivors of domestic violence and sex trafficking through LB 78, from State Sen. Eliot Bostar of Lincoln. It would increase the documentary stamp tax by 7 cents per $1,000 worth of property, which is on the transfer of real estate, a portion of which the state uses for affordable housing or homeless shelter assistance.
All new revenue would be directed to the new housing assistance. It passed 49-0 and would take effect three months after adjournment.
Senators also passed LB 559, from State Sen. Carolyn Bosn of Lincoln, chair of the Legislature's Judiciary Committee, to outlaw unauthorized skimming devices and 'kingpins' who use them, such as on ATMs, point-of-sale systems or fuel pumps. It passed 43-6.
The bill included LB 464, also from Bosn, a former prosecutor, to outlaw 'organized retail crime,' a step up from strings of shoplifting depending on the value of merchandise stolen.
Other bills that passed on Wednesday include:
LB 32, from State Sen. Megan Hunt of Omaha, to allow candidates to use a post office box instead of a street address on political advertisements. A street address would still need to be on file with state officials. Passed 47-2.
LB 36, from State Sen. Tom Brandt of Plymouth, to establish the 'Safe Battery Collection and Recycling Act' to collect and safely dispose of certain batteries, increase fees on Nebraska Game and Parks Commission park entry permits and expand allowable water recreation projects. Passed 43-6.
LB 80, from State Sen. Bob Hallstrom of Syracuse, would consolidate laws related to protection orders, extend ordered protection orders and renewals to two years instead of one, require child abuse involving a military family to be reported to the service member's military installation and require landlords to change locks or remove a perpetrator of domestic violence from a rental agreement soon after abuse is documented and a protective or restraining order has been granted. Passed 46-3.
LB 133, from State Sen. Rick Holdcroft of Bellevue, to expand the definition of 'law enforcement officer' to include animal control officers to enforce state or local animal control laws if authorized by a city, village or county. Passed 42-7.
LB 166, from State Sen. Jana Hughes of Seward, to require county treasurers to conceal the addresses of law enforcement, members of the Nebraska National Guard or judges if such a person applies to have their address withheld, which is currently the law for county assessors. Addresses for judges would also be concealed when they are up for retention elections. Passed 48-1.
LB 230, also from Hallstrom, to restrict and regulate the sale of kratom to those 21 years of age or older, classify tianeptine ('gas station heroin') as a Schedule II controlled substance and prohibit the sale of nitrous oxide (laughing gas). Passed 49-0.
LB 257, from State Sen. Dan Quick of Grand Island, creates a pathway for marriage and family therapists from other states to be licensed in Nebraska and increases the minimum liability coverage needed for child care licensing. Passed 46-3.
LB 287, from State Sen. Terrell McKinney of Omaha, to give additional authority to cities of the metropolitan class (Omaha) to crack down on bed bug infestations and regulate housing authorities within metropolitan cities for pest control, regular inspections, property registrations, penalties or requiring updates to the city council. Passed 34-15.
LB 332, from State Sen. Brian Hardin of Gering, to create assistant funeral directors, permit pharmacists to dispense emergency refills in certain circumstances and require Medicaid coverage for psychology services provided by qualifying advanced-level practitioners supervised by a licensed psychologist. Passed 49-0.
LB 364, also from Quick, would allow the Legislature's Executive Board, when the Legislature is not in session, to approve an 'indication of intent' from the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission to move land into the state park system. Passed 46-3.
LB 526, from State Sen. Mike Jacobson of North Platte, to allow a public power supplier to pass on costs to or require additional terms and conditions of cryptocurrency mining operations, including if the operation necessitates infrastructure upgrades. Passed 49-0.
LB 561, also from Brandt, would create a special permit for overweight vehicles carrying raw milk up to 107,500 pounds. The Nebraska Department of Transportation would need to create a list of bridges that would and would not support the weight. Passed 49-0.
LB 660, from State Sen. Bob Andersen of north-central Sarpy County, would require state agencies to regularly review regulations and repeal unnecessary rules, mandate an updated inventory of federal funds the state relies on along with contingency plans in the event of reductions in federal support and permit legal challenges against rules or regulations in local district courts rather than only in Lancaster County. Passed 49-0.
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Los Angeles Times
7 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
A U.S. territory's colonial history emerges in disputes over voting and citizenship
WHITTIER, Alaska — Squeezed between glacier-packed mountains and Alaska's Prince William Sound, the cruise-ship stop of Whittier is isolated enough that it's reachable by just a single road, through a long, one-lane tunnel that vehicles share with trains. It's so small that nearly all its 260 residents live in the same 14-story condo building. But Whittier also is the unlikely crossroads of two major currents in American politics: fighting over what it means to be born on U.S. soil and false claims by President Trump and others that noncitizen voter fraud is widespread. In what experts describe as an unprecedented case, Alaska prosecutors are pursuing felony charges against 11 residents of Whittier, most of them related to one another, saying they falsely claimed U.S. citizenship when registering or trying to vote. The defendants were all born in American Samoa, an island cluster in the South Pacific roughly halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand. It's the only U.S. territory where residents are not automatically granted citizenship by virtue of having been born on American soil, as the Constitution dictates. Instead, by a quirk of geopolitical history, they are considered 'U.S. nationals' — a distinction that gives them certain rights and obligations while denying them others. American Samoans are entitled to U.S. passports and can serve in the military. Men must register for the Selective Service. They can vote in local elections in American Samoa but cannot hold public office in the U.S. or participate in most U.S. elections. Those who wish to become citizens can do so, but the process costs hundreds of dollars and can be cumbersome. 'To me, I'm an American. I was born an American on U.S. soil,' said firefighter Michael Pese, one of those charged in Whittier. 'American Samoa has been U.S. soil, U.S. jurisdiction, for 125 years. According to the supreme law of the land, that's my birthright.' The status has created confusion in other states as well. In Oregon, officials inadvertently registered nearly 200 American Samoan residents to vote when they got their driver's licenses under the state's motor-voter law. Of those, 10 cast ballots in an election, according to the Oregon secretary of state's office. Officials there determined the residents had not intended to break the law and no crime was committed. In Hawaii, one resident who was born in American Samoa, Sai Timoteo, ran for the state Legislature in 2018 before learning she wasn't allowed to hold public office or vote. She had always considered it her civic duty to vote, and the form on the voting materials had one box to check: 'U.S. Citizen/U.S. National.' 'I checked that box my entire life,' she said. She also avoided charges, and Hawaii subsequently changed its form to make it more clear. Amid the storm of executive orders issued by Trump in the early days of his second term was one that sought to redefine birthright citizenship by barring it for children of parents who are in the U.S. unlawfully. Another would overhaul how federal elections are run, among other changes requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship. Courts so far have blocked both orders. The Constitution says that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.' It also leaves the administration of elections to the states. The case in Whittier began with Pese's wife, Tupe Smith. After the couple moved to Whittier in 2018, Smith began volunteering at the Whittier Community School, where nearly half of the 55 students were American Samoan — many of them her nieces and nephews. She would help the kids with their English, tutor them in reading and cook them Samoan dishes. In 2023, a seat on the regional school board came open and she ran for it. She was the only candidate and won with about 95% of the vote. One morning a few weeks later, as she was making her two children breakfast, state troopers came knocking. They asked about her voting history. She explained that she knew she wasn't allowed to vote in U.S. presidential elections, but thought she could vote in local or state races. She said she checked a box affirming that she was a U.S. citizen at the instruction of elections workers because there was no option to identify herself as a U.S. national, court records say. The troopers arrested her and drove her to a women's prison near Anchorage. She was released that day after her husband paid bail. 'When they put me in cuffs, my son started crying,' Smith said. About 10 months later, troopers returned to Whittier and issued court summonses to Pese, eight other relatives and one man who was not related but came from the same American Samoa village as Pese. One of Smith's attorneys, Neil Weare, grew up in another U.S. territory, Guam, and is the co-founder of the Washington-based Right to Democracy Project, whose mission is 'confronting and dismantling the undemocratic colonial framework governing people in U.S. territories.' He suggested the prosecutions are aimed at 'low-hanging fruit' in the absence of evidence that illegal immigrants frequently cast ballots in U.S. elections. Even state-level investigations have found voting by noncitizens to be exceptionally rare. 'There is no question that Ms. Smith lacked an intent to mislead or deceive a public official in order to vote unlawfully when she checked 'U.S. citizen' on voter registration materials,' he wrote in a brief to the Alaska Court of Appeals, after a lower court judge declined to dismiss the charges. Prosecutors say her false claim of citizenship was intentional, and her claim to the contrary was undercut by the clear language on the voter application forms she filled out in 2020 and 2022. The forms said that if the applicant did not answer yes to being over 18 years old and a U.S. citizen, 'do not complete this form, as you are not eligible to vote.' The unique situation of American Samoans dates to the 19th century, when the U.S. and European powers were seeking to expand their colonial and economic interests in the South Pacific. The U.S. Navy secured the use of Pago Pago Harbor in eastern Samoa as a coal-refueling station for military and commercial vessels, while Germany sought to protect its coconut plantations in western Samoa. Eventually the archipelago was divided, with the western islands becoming the independent nation of Samoa and the eastern ones becoming American Samoa, overseen by the Navy. The leaders of American Samoa spent much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries arguing that its people should be U.S. citizens. Birthright citizenship was eventually afforded to residents of other U.S. territories — Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Congress considered it for American Samoa in the 1930s, but declined. Some lawmakers cited financial concerns during the Great Depression while others expressed patently racist objections, according to a 2020 article in the American Journal of Legal History. Supporters of automatic citizenship say it would particularly benefit the estimated 150,000 to 160,000 nationals who live in the states, many of them in California, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Utah and Alaska. 'We pay taxes, we do exactly the same as everybody else that are U.S. citizens,' Smith said. 'It would be nice for us to have the same rights as everybody here in the states.' But many in American Samoa eventually soured on the idea, fearing that extending birthright citizenship would jeopardize its customs — including the territory's communal land laws. Island residents could be dispossessed by land privatization, not unlike what happened in Hawaii, said Siniva Bennett, board chair of the Samoa Pacific Development Corporation, a Portland, Ore.-based nonprofit. 'We've been able to maintain our culture, and we haven't been divested from our land like a lot of other indigenous people in the U.S.,' Bennett said. In 2021, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to extend automatic citizenship to those born in American Samoa, saying it would be wrong to force citizenship on those who don't want it. The Supreme Court declined to review the decision. Several jurisdictions across the country, including San Francisco and the District of Columbia, allow people who are not citizens to vote in certain local elections. Tafilisaunoa Toleafoa, with the Pacific Community of Alaska, said the situation has been so confusing that her organization reached out to the Alaska Division of Elections in 2021 and 2022 to ask whether American Samoans could vote in state and local elections. Neither time did it receive a direct answer, she said. 'People were telling our community that they can vote as long as you have your voter registration card and it was issued by the state,' she said. Finally, last year, Carol Beecher, head of the state Division of Elections, sent Toleafoa's group a letter saying American Samoans are not eligible to vote in Alaska elections. But by then, the voting forms had been signed. 'It is my hope that this is a lesson learned, that the state of Alaska agrees that this could be something that we can administratively correct,' Toleafoa said. 'I would say that the state could have done that instead of prosecuting community members.' Thiessen, Bohrer and Johnson write for the Associated Press. Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska, and Johnson from Seattle. Claire Rush in Portland and Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu contributed to this report.
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘We made a mistake': Pillen accepts responsibility for failed vetoes to Nebraska budget
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen. Dec. 10, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner) LINCOLN — Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen has accepted responsibility for mishandled line-item vetoes to the state's next two-year budget while reiterating that many of the suggested cuts will be reconsidered in 2026. Pillen, speaking with the Nebraska Examiner after the Legislature adjourned for the year, said the veto process includes 'human beings' in his office, the Clerk of the Legislature's Office and the Secretary of State's Office. On May 21, his office delivered Legislative Bill 261 and LB 264 with line-item vetoes to the Secretary of State's Office, which is the right place for the bills to go when the Legislature is out of session, but not to the Clerk of the Legislature's Office on the other side of the Capitol, which is where bills must be returned when senators are in session. The Governor's Office says LB 261 was line-item vetoed at 1:08 p.m. on May 21 and LB 264 at 1:10 p.m. A spokesperson for the Secretary of State's Office said the bills were delivered to that office around 5 p.m. the same day. The Legislature did receive a separate letter from Pillen the night of May 21 detailing the line-item vetoes, as well as a copy of the bills with the inscribed vetoes, but lawmakers contended the next day that a line-item veto is constitutional only with the inscribed vetoes on the actual bills. Those bills remained at the Secretary of State's Office until morning. The Nebraska Constitution requires vetoes to be returned within five days of being presented to the governor, excluding Sundays. The bills passed May 15 and went to Pillen's office at 1:12 p.m., so the deadline was by the end-of-day May 21. Pillen said the mistake on the night of May 21 was 'a miscommunication on where it was supposed to go.' Pillen was in Washington, D.C., the following day, for a 'Make America Healthy Again' event at the White House. 'Bottom line: We made a mistake. I'd have thought, because we all work together, that a flag would have been thrown and said, 'Hey, let's do X,' but there wasn't, and then the glass of milk was spilled the next morning,' Pillen told the Examiner. The intended vetoes targeted $14.5 million to the state's general fund and $18 million in repurposed cash funds for improvements at Lake McConaughy. He sought to save $14.5 million that the Legislature's budget aimed to use from the state's 'rainy day' cash reserve by trimming spending — $152 million from the rainy day fund went to help balance the budget. The Nebraska Supreme Court, which faced about $12 million of Pillen's proposed general fund reductions (83%), has said the loss of those funds could close vital court services. This was Pillen's second two-year budget — he vetoed $38.5 million in general fund spending in 2023 for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 fiscal years. Lawmakers restored about $850,000 of the trims. Pillen, Secretary of State Bob Evnen and Speaker of the Legislature John Arch have pledged to clarify the line-item veto process for the budget ahead of 2026, and they've agreed that the suggested reductions should be considered when the budget is adjusted next year. Arch has said that to his knowledge, nothing like this had happened before. Pillen, whose office now insists the matter is resolved, said, 'As I told our team, we look in the mirror, we accept responsibilities. I've not met a human that doesn't make a mistake yet.' Pillen and his staff have declined to detail exactly what happened the night of May 21. Rani Taborek-Potter, a spokesperson for Evnen, said no one from the Secretary of State's Office delivered the actual LB 261 and LB 264 with the line-item vetoes to the Clerk of the Legislature's Office, 'nor is it our office's responsibility to do so.' 'When bills are vetoed by the Governor, the vetoed bills are delivered directly to the Clerk of the Legislature's Office by the Governor's office, as was the case for LB 319 and LB 287 to the best of our knowledge,' Taborek-Potter told the Examiner, referring to the two other bills vetoed this session related to expanding SNAP benefit eligibility and fighting bedbugs in Omaha. Taborek-Potter confirmed the Governor's Office delivered the budget bills to the administrative assistant in the Secretary of State's Office just before 5 p.m. on May 21. The Examiner on May 23 requested all records and communications regarding the line-item vetoes from when the budget bills passed May 15 to the date of the records request. The request sought texts, emails and digital messages. It also asked for communications within the executive branch and between Pillen's office and the legislative branch, including staff and state senators. Documents provided in response indicated that Pillen's veto letter detailing his objections was ready by 6:05 p.m., when the state budget administrator, Neil Sullivan, sent it to Pillen's staff. Around 6:27 p.m., Kenny Zoeller, director of the governor's Policy Research Office, the main research and lobbying arm for Pillen, confirmed the letter among gubernatorial staff. 'We are handing this off back to the Legislature POST adjournment,' Zoeller wrote of next steps. 'I will text when it's handed off.' Laura Strimple, the governor's primary spokesperson, sent a draft news release regarding the vetoes at 8:21 p.m. to Sullivan. It was sent to reporters around 11:23 p.m. The Legislature adjourned at 9:20 p.m., and a reporter could see legislative staff discussing the veto letter. Through much of the day on May 22, legislative leadership met off the floor, including Arch. Several emerged just before adjournment at 2:37 p.m. when Arch announced the vetoes could not be accepted and that the Legislature had concluded they were constitutionally improper. Some members of the Appropriations Committee hugged, threw fists in the air and smiled after. Pillen's spokesperson, Strimple, sent a statement to reporters at 4:48 p.m. stating it was the governor's position that Pillen 'clearly took the legally required steps to exercise his veto authority by surrendering physical possession and the power to approve or reject the bills.' She said the Governor's Office would consult with the Attorney General's Office and other counsel. The Policy Research Office, executive branch budget staff and other members of the governor's staff met around 5 p.m. on May 22. Strimple sent her statement on the governor's position to all members of the governor's staff at 5:23 p.m., then to lawmakers at 5:53 p.m. On May 27, the next legislative day, Pillen, Arch and Evnen released their joint statement around 2:54 p.m., ending the possible constitutional dispute and returning to their respective corners, with no one taking blame for the situation until Pillen spoke with reporters this week. Pillen's office asserts that it searched texts and digital messages as part of the public records request but found no responsive records, including from Zoeller, who had pledged to text after delivering the veto letter in one of the emails. The Governor's Office provided no records reflecting communications with the legislative branch. None of the records indicate what happened to the bills after being delivered to Evnen's office. Evnen, speaking with the Examiner on Friday, reiterated that the Secretary of State's Office's role with legislation is to file it, and 'when it's brought to our office and we're asked to file it, that's what we do.' 'There's a certain amount of confusion, really between the legislative branch and the Governor's Office, about those line-item vetoes, and I think that what we will do is sit down and talk through together how that will be handled. That's a really good thing to do,' he said. Multiple lawmakers beyond Arch have quietly teased the suggestion with the Examiner, asking how much clearer the process can be. Asked if there was a reason the original bills in the Secretary of State's Office by about 5 p.m. could not be delivered by midnight on May 21, Evnen said: 'You would have to ask the Governor's Office.' Strimple, asked about the remaining timeline on May 21 and May 22, said that with the Arch-Evnen-Pillen joint statement, 'The matter is concluded.' One of the top targets of Gov. Jim Pillen's intended line-item vetoes to the state's budget bills was about $12 million in spending earmarked for the Nebraska Supreme Court. Corey Steel, state court administrator for Nebraska, told lawmakers that the line-item vetoes to the courts could eliminate various services, including three problem-solving courts in Lancaster and Sarpy Counties, a drug court in Gov. Jim Pillen's home of Platte County, transition living reimbursements for certain adults and non-statutory services for juveniles on probation. Pillen told the Examiner that while he has the 'utmost respect' for the separation of powers between Nebraska's branches of government, he believes each one must look at government differently. He said the courts have significantly increased spending and have money sitting around. Steel, as well as Chief Justice Jeffrey Funke, have said that position isn't accurate and that increased spending has been in part due to legislation that came without new funds. The judicial branch leaders have said that the 'money' held in various funds is now exhausted. However, Pillen said he's not backing down and that the reductions will be considered in 2026. 'We have to be fiscally responsible,' Pillen said, 'and that's all we're asking.' — Zach Wendling SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
21 hours ago
A US territory's colonial history emerges in state disputes over voting and citizenship
WHITTIER, Alaska -- Squeezed between glacier-packed mountains and Alaska's Prince William Sound, the cruise-ship stop of Whittier is isolated enough that it's reachable by just a single road, through a long, one-lane tunnel that vehicles share with trains. It's so small that nearly all its 260 residents live in the same 14-story condo building. But Whittier also is the unlikely crossroads of two major currents in American politics: fighting over what it means to be born on U.S. soil and false claims by President Donald Trump and others that noncitizen voter fraud is widespread. In what experts describe as an unprecedented case, Alaska prosecutors are pursuing felony charges against 11 residents of Whittier, most of them related to one another, saying they falsely claimed U.S. citizenship when registering or trying to vote. The defendants were all born in American Samoa, an island cluster in the South Pacific roughly halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand. It's the only U.S. territory where residents are not automatically granted citizenship by virtue of having been born on American soil, as the Constitution dictates. Instead, by a quirk of geopolitical history, they are considered 'U.S. nationals' — a distinction that gives them certain rights and obligations while denying them others. American Samoans are entitled to U.S. passports and can serve in the military. Men must register for the Selective Service. They can vote in local elections in American Samoa but cannot hold public office in the U.S. or participate in most U.S. elections. Those who wish to become citizens can do so, but the process costs hundreds of dollars and can be cumbersome. 'To me, I'm an American. I was born an American on U.S. soil,' said firefighter Michael Pese, one of those charged in Whittier. 'American Samoa has been U.S. soil, U.S. jurisdiction, for 125 years. According to the supreme law of the land, that's my birthright.' The status has created confusion in other states, as well. In Oregon, officials inadvertently registered nearly 200 American Samoan residents to vote when they got their driver's licenses under the state's motor-voter law. Of those, 10 cast ballots in an election, according to the Oregon Secretary of State's office. Officials there determined the residents had not intended to break the law and no crime was committed. In Hawaii, one resident who was born in American Samoa, Sai Timoteo, ran for the state Legislature in 2018 before learning she wasn't allowed to hold public office or vote. She had always considered it her civic duty to vote, and the form on the voting materials had one box to check: 'U.S. Citizen/U.S. National.' 'I checked that box my entire life,' she said. She also avoided charges, and Hawaii subsequently changed its form to make it more clear. Amid the storm of executive orders issued by Trump in the early days of his second term was one that sought to redefine birthright citizenship by barring it for children of parents who are in the U.S. unlawfully. Another would overhaul how federal elections are run, among other changes requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship. Courts so far have blocked both orders. The Constitution says that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.' It also leaves the administration of elections to the states. The case in Whittier began with Pese's wife, Tupe Smith. After the couple moved to Whittier in 2018, Smith began volunteering at the Whittier Community School, where nearly half of the 55 students were American Samoan — many of them her nieces and nephews. She would help the kids with their English, tutor them in reading and cook them Samoan dishes. In 2023, a seat on the regional school board came open and she ran for it. She was the only candidate and won with about 95% of the vote. One morning a few weeks later, as she was making her two children breakfast, state troopers came knocking. They asked about her voting history. She explained that she knew she wasn't allowed to vote in U.S. presidential elections, but thought she could vote in local or state races. She said she checked a box affirming that she was a U.S. citizen at the instruction of elections workers because there was no option to identify herself as a U.S. national, court records say. The troopers arrested her and drove her to a women's prison near Anchorage. She was released that day after her husband paid bail. 'When they put me in cuffs, my son started crying," Smith told The Associated Press. "He told their dad that he don't want the cops to take me or to lock me up.' About 10 months later, troopers returned to Whittier and issued court summonses to Pese, eight other relatives and one man who was not related but came from the same American Samoa village as Pese. One of Smith's attorneys, Neil Weare, grew up in another U.S. territory, Guam, and is the co-founder of the Washington-based Right to Democracy Project, whose mission is 'confronting and dismantling the undemocratic colonial framework governing people in U.S. territories.' He suggested the prosecutions are aimed at 'low-hanging fruit' in the absence of evidence that illegal immigrants frequently cast ballots in U.S. elections. Even state-level investigations have found voting by noncitizens to be exceptionally rare. 'There is no question that Ms. Smith lacked an intent to mislead or deceive a public official in order to vote unlawfully when she checked 'U.S. citizen' on voter registration materials,' he wrote in a brief to the Alaska Court of Appeals last week, after a lower court judge declined to dismiss the charges. Prosecutors say her false claim of citizenship was intentional, and her claim to the contrary was undercut by the clear language on the voter application forms she filled out in 2020 and 2022. The forms said that if the applicant did not answer yes to being over 18 years old and a U.S. citizen, 'do not complete this form, as you are not eligible to vote.' The unique situation of American Samoans dates to the 19th century, when the U.S. and European powers were seeking to expand their colonial and economic interests in the South Pacific. The U.S. Navy secured the use of Pago Pago Harbor in eastern Samoa as a coal-refueling station for military and commercial vessels, while Germany sought to protect its coconut plantations in western Samoa. Eventually the archipelago was divided, with the western islands becoming the independent nation of Samoa and the eastern ones becoming American Samoa, overseen by the Navy. The leaders of American Samoa spent much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries arguing that its people should be U.S. citizens. Birthright citizenship was eventually afforded to residents of other U.S. territories — Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Congress considered it for American Samoa in the 1930s, but declined. Some lawmakers cited financial concerns during the Great Depression while others expressed patently racist objections, according to a 2020 article in the American Journal of Legal History. Supporters of automatic citizenship say it would particularly benefit the estimated 150,000 to 160,000 nationals who live in the states, many of them in California, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Utah and Alaska. 'We pay taxes, we do exactly the same as everybody else that are U.S. citizens,' Smith said. 'It would be nice for us to have the same rights as everybody here in the states.' But many in American Samoa eventually soured on the idea, fearing that extending birthright citizenship would jeopardize its customs — including the territory's communal land laws. Island residents could be dispossessed by land privatization, not unlike what happened in Hawaii, said Siniva Bennett, board chair of the Samoa Pacific Development Corporation, a Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit. 'We've been able to maintain our culture, and we haven't been divested from our land like a lot of other indigenous people in the U.S.,' Bennett said. In 2021, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to extend automatic citizenship to those born in American Samoa, saying it would be wrong to force citizenship on those who don't want it. The Supreme Court declined to review the decision. Several jurisdictions across the country, including San Francisco and the District of Columbia, allow people who are not citizens to vote in certain local elections. Tafilisaunoa Toleafoa, with the Pacific Community of Alaska, said the situation has been so confusing that her organization reached out to the Alaska Division of Elections in 2021 and 2022 to ask whether American Samoans could vote in state and local elections. Neither time did it receive a direct answer, she said. 'People were telling our community that they can vote as long as you have your voter registration card and it was issued by the state,' she said. Finally, last year, Carol Beecher, the head of the state Division of Elections, sent Toleafoa's group a letter saying American Samoans are not eligible to vote in Alaska elections. But by then, the voting forms had been signed. 'It is my hope that this is a lesson learned, that the state of Alaska agrees that this could be something that we can administratively correct,' Toleafoa said. 'I would say that the state could have done that instead of prosecuting community members.'
