Andrew Gray
13:48 - 14:23
“in the United States today, Alaska has a larger American Samoan population than any other state behind Hawaii. So it— this is a real issue in our state.”
- Speaker
- Andrew Gray
- Timestamp
- 13:48 – 14:23
- Community
- Alaska News
- Location
- Alaska
From the transcript
I'm just going to spell that out for a moment. And the reason why it's important, and it's— we're going to talk about American Samoans, is because in the United States today, Alaska has a larger American Samoan population than any other state behind Hawaii. So it— this is a real issue in our state. We have a large population who, um, don't. And I, I think in the previous sponsor statement that we heard a week ago, um, when we heard from former Senator John Coghill, it was stated that this would actually give clarity to American Samoans, but that's not true.
Related Coverage
A one-word change to Alaska's voting law could foreclose a path for American Samoan residents
Measure 3 would add "only" to Alaska's voter law — a narrow safeguard, its sponsor says. Opponents note noncitizen voting is already illegal and say it would foreclose a path for American Samoan residents, U.S. nationals who aren't automatically citizens.
