Whether the Fifteenth Amendment permits Guam to invite only 'native inhabitants of Guam' to participate in a potential political-status plebiscite that would yield only a nonbinding, symbolic expression of self-determination preferences

QUESTION PRESENTED Shortly after the end of World War II, Congress extended citizenship to certain inhabitants of Guam through the 1950 Organic Act of Guam, 48 U.S.C. § 1421 et seg. Fifty years later, the government of Guam decided to invite that same class of people to express their views on the island’s future political relationship with the United States. Under the 2000 Plebiscite Law, “native inhabitants of Guam’— defined as “those persons who became U.S. Citizens by virtue of the authority and enactment of the 1950 Guam Organic Act and descendants of those persons”—can indicate their preference for one of three “political status options”: (1) “Independence,” (2) “Free Association with the United States of America,” or (8) “Statehood.” 1 Guam Code Ann. §§ 2102(b), 2110. The results of this political-status poll are purely advisory. The plebiscite does not select political officials, does not empower the government to take (or refuse to take) a course of action, and does not effectuate any change in the political status quo. The only consequence is that Guam will “promptly transmit” the results of the plebiscite “to the President and the Congress of the United States of America, and to the Secretary General of the United Nations.” Id. § 2105. The question presented is: Whether the Fifteenth Amendment permits Guam to invite only “native inhabitants of Guam” to participate in a potential political-status plebiscite that would yield only a nonbinding, symbolic expression of self-determination preferences.