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We’re just three days into 2025, and Stacey Plaskett has already filed a strong entry for this year’s “top truth-teller in Congress” award.
You may have missed her powerful moment from Friday’s House speakership vote if you’re not a C-SPAN junkie like me, but you ought to see it. The Democrat from the U.S. Virgin Islands made a parliamentary inquiry to ask the House parliamentarian to explain why the six nonvoting delegates from U.S. territories and the District of Columbia aren’t allowed to vote for speaker.
Plaskett said:
I note that the names of the representatives from the America Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia were not called, representing collectively 4 million Americans. Mr. Speaker, collectively the largest per capita of veterans in this country. I ask why they were not called.
The parliamentarian’s response was, in essence, “Them’s the rules.”
There was certainly no moral justification offered, so what Plaskett essentially did was give viewers and her colleagues a textbook lesson in American imperialism. And it was quite a sight to see her being booed by Republicans for doing so.
Plaskett continued: “This body and this nation has a territories and a colonies problem. What was supposed to be temporary has now, effectively, become permanent.
“We must do something about this problem, so that these 4 million Americans,” she said as her mic was cut off. Her mic briefly came back on just as she proclaimed, “But I have a voice!”
Here we are in the United States, a country that salutes its founders for their refusal to live under British imperialism. And nearly 250 years after bloodshed over this, a Black woman who dared to question why the U.S. is foisting similar imperialism on her and her people was literally silenced.
This was a remarkable snapshot that perfectly summarizes our current political moment.
It’s worth noting that President-elect Donald Trump has openly pondered having the U.S. take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal, and even touted adding Canada as our 51st state — but not Washington, D.C., or Puerto Rico.
Trump’s expansionist fantasies are cheap ways for him to amuse his followers with the performative MAGA bravado they’ve come to love. But Plaskett’s remarks cut through all that nonsense by highlighting the truly oppressive and illiberal nature of America’s territorial schemes.
The United States doesn’t need to expand. It needs to grant full citizenship to all people already living on the lands under its control.