I was for whatever reason thinking of Puerto Rico’s political status, and found out that PR (along with Guam, American Samoa, Virgin Islands, etc) is considered an “unincorporated territory”. According to many accounts, that means only “fundamental rights” instead of full constitutional rights apply. That got me wondering:
–what exactly are fundamental rights, and why don’t they include all the constitution?
–in self-governing territories like Puerto Rico, can the local government pass a law that violates the U.S. Constitution? Or for that matter, can they pass a law that violates U.S. statute law?
This has to do with the Insular Cases in which the Supreme Court ruled that not all Constitutional rights automatically applied to territories annexed after the Spanish-American War. However, at least one case, Torres v. Puerto Rico, established that Puerto Rico could not pass laws that were unconstitutional.