Guam Organic Act of 1950

The Guam Organic Act of 1950, (48 U.S.C. § 1421 et seq.) is a United States federal law that redesignated the island of Guam as an unincorporated territory of the United States, established executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and transferred federal jurisdiction from the United States Navy to the Department of the Interior. For the first time in over three hundred years of foreign colonization, the people of Guam had some measure of self-governance, however limited.

The Organic Act (as it became known on Guam) provided for:

Guam was later granted a non-voting delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives. The Guam delegate is an official part of Congress, and can serve on committees, but cannot vote on legislation. See: Delegate (United States Congress)

The first bill providing for an Organic Act and U.S. citizenship was introduced on July 15, 1946 by U.S. Representative Robert A. Grant of Indiana in the form of H.R. 7044. This provided that Guam be accorded the semi-autonomous status of an Organized territory, with the privilege of sending a delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill, however, was never even reported out of committee, as was the fate of all the bills introduced during the 79th United States Congress.

The issue of local authority came to a head in February 1949, when Abe Goldstein, a civil service employee of the U.S. Navy, was subpoenaed by the Guam Assembly. Goldstein allegedly was one of a number of people in violation of a prohibition against Americans owning local businesses. Goldstein and others were accused of using Guamanian "front men" to finance the local businesses. Goldstein, however, refused to testify, having received unofficial support from Naval Governor Charles Alan Pownall (1949–1953). Pownall had vetoed the power of the Guam Assembly to subpoena Americans in October 1948.

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