From: ahk@chinet.com   
      
   Stephen Sprunk  wrote:   
      
   >If American Samoa wanted to get real representation in Congress, all   
   >they'd have to do is hold a referendum on statehood.  Puerto Rico does   
   >so every few years--and it is soundly defeated each time.   
      
   Turns out it's more complicated. They wrote their own constitution, but   
   Congress never wrote an organic law for them, so it's unorganized territory.   
   I'm sure this could all be negotiated if American Samoa wants to change   
   their status, but I agree with you; I've never heard that they do.   
      
   As long as I was looking it up, I learned why American Samoa was never   
   a Trust Territory despite being a former German colony, a different   
   status than Trust Territory of the Pacific. United States and Germany had   
   negotiated a treaty with regard to Samoa in 1899, long before WWI. The   
   Trust Territories were generally successors to Mandates on territory   
   seized from Germany (and other losing nations) in WWI.   
      
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