Posted on 02/01/2006 5:48:44 AM PST by cll
The status question, after years on the back burner, will dominate Puerto Rican politics this year. The event that signaled the launch of intense campaigning on the issue by all three of the island’s political parties was the publication in Washington last month of a report commissioned by President Bush.
The report, compiled by an interagency task force, recommended that there should be a federal plebiscite this year on whether Puerto Rico wants to maintain its current status as a territory or commonwealth (estado libre asociado, ELA) of the United States or choose a nonterritorial alternative.
In the latter case, the report suggested that the U.S. Congress, which has responsibility for Puerto Rican affairs through the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, should organize another plebiscite, offering voters a choice between statehood, on the one hand, and independence or free association with the United States, on the other.
These recommendations, predictably, have had a mixed reception. While the opposition Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP) and Partido Independentista Puertorriqueno (PIP) welcomed the report, the ruling Partido Popular Democratico (PPD) rejected it because the options put forward do not include an enhanced version of the present status.
With both sides lobbying Congress to get across their views, Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila claims to be confident that the U.S. legislature will not turn the report into law this year.
Acevedo Vila returned to San Juan on Jan. 19 from a meeting with his main ally in Congress, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), to proclaim that there was widespread opposition, or indifference, in Congress to the report’s recommendations and that the proposal to hold a federal plebiscite was doomed.
Menendez, a Cuban-American, is a member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and thus in a position to know. The minority leader in the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), seems to share Menendez’s doubts about the White House report.
However, the governor’s announcement is unlikely to put off the PNP, which also has some useful Washington contacts.
The party is convinced that statehood will become a reality this year and is preparing a campaign based on the argument that Puerto Rico’s “colonial” status is against the spirit of the U.S. constitution. The PNP strategy, devised by the party’s president, former Gov. Pedro Rossello, consists of pushing through the Puerto Rican legislature a resolution urging the U.S. Congress to turn into law the recommendations of the task force’s report, as the Puerto Rico Democracy Act, and then persuading Congress to act on the resolution.
As the PNP has a majority in both houses, and the island’s resident commissioner in Washington, who has a voice but not a vote in the House of Representatives, is also from the PNP, this process is already well under way. The island’s Senate passed the resolution Jan. 18, with the PPD minority voting against, and it now has to be approved by the lower house.
The resolution provides for the creation of an 18-member joint committee of the two houses to handle all aspects of the status issue. Rossello has his eye on the chairmanship of this committee.
The PNP is also planning direct action, in the form of a pro-statehood crusade to Congress early this month, led by the PNP vice president, Miriam Ramirez de Ferrer, bearing a 100,000-signature petition, and a 15-day march around the island in the second half of February.
The PIP, which represents the views of about 5 percent of Puerto Rican voters, is equally enthusiastic about the White House report, calling it a “mortal blow” to the ELA and a first step toward the end of colonialism. Like the PNP, it wants the federal plebiscite suggested in the report to take place this year. However, if the U.S. Congress fails to act, it is calling for a constitutional assembly to be elected in the island.
Acevedo Vila has also called for such an assembly in the past, without success. His argument is that what he calls a “true process of self-determination” should begin on the island, not in Washington, but the White House report “insults” Puerto Ricans by failing to provide for such a process.
The report takes the view that the 1952 ELA accord is a transitory arrangement (which is also the PNP’s position), rather than a pact that can be modified by agreement between the two sides (the PPD view). Acevedo Vila argues that voters should be offered the option of supporting a modified version of commonwealth status, giving the island’s government greater control over such areas as federal appointments, taxation and trade negotiations.
Rejecting calls from some PPD politicians to manufacture a “crisis” over the issue, Acevedo Vila appears reassured that Congress would not support legislation on Puerto Rican status that does not enjoy a consensus in the island itself and is not backed by the governor.
A continuing feud between Rossello and Resident Commissioner Luis Fortuño, and a long-running tussle for control of the Puerto Rican Senate between Rossello and a group of PNP senators led by the current president of the upper house, Kenneth McClintock, complicates the PNP’s campaign.
Fortuño refuses to return to the island to attend PNP executive meetings chaired by Rossello, arguing that his time is better spent cultivating Republican contacts in Washington.
Despite his reservations about Fortuño, Rossello felt obliged Jan. 18 to appoint him as the PNP’s official liaison with the Republican Party. (Former Gov. Carlos Romero Barcelo has been given the same role with the Democrats.)
Underlying the power struggle between Rossello and Fortuño is competition for advantage ahead of the 2008 elections. Rossello sees a successful statehood campaign as the best way of gearing up the party machine to back his candidacy. However, McClintock’s group could yet deny him chairmanship of the status committee.
Meanwhile, Acevedo Vila has been trying to recover the political initiative by submitting a long-awaited tax-reform proposal to the island’s legislature in mid-January. However, the PNP majority is determined to block it — not least because the measures would give the governor additional resources for high-profile public works ahead of the next election campaign.
The formal reason the PNP has given for rejecting the reforms is that they contain no provision for reducing public spending and would only benefit the wealthy at the expense of the middle classes. Acevedo Vila badly needs the tax reforms, as the credit-rating agencies have threatened to downgrade Puerto Rican government bonds if they are not forthcoming.
The focus will be on Washington for most of this year, as Puerto Rico’s fate lies in the hands of Congress. The most likely outcome is that the task-force report will not become law.
Oxford Analytica is an international consulting firm providing strategic analysis on world events for business and government leaders. See www.oxan.com.
yeah, and we have Texans and Carolinians, New Englanders ... the list can go on and on.
Here. Is. The. Newsflash...
R u ready???...
Boricuas are AMERICAN.
True, Puerto Rico holds a unique position; citizenship in our Nation comes from an act of Congress, and thus has applied to any American born on the island. Is that citizenship somehow different from you & I (you ARE a native-American, I assume???) who were born here?
You may believe so, I don't. In fact, your distinction based on geographic origin is just the good old socialist "let's define 'em by what makes 'em different" group model.
Hyphenated Americanism doesn't work, dude! Haven't you ever read what Teddy Roosevelt said about this same thing 100 years ago?
CGVet58
(USCG, 1976-2000, full-blooded AMERICANO con raizes de Acero Boricua)
Interesting point! I didn't really think of that.
The problem is that I don't see 75% of Puerto Ricans voting for statehood. We may have to lower the threshold to 60% or 65%.
One way or another, this matter has got to be resolved for the benefit of all sides. Puerto Rico should either go their own way or be part of the United States. The commonwealth or territory status that we have doesn't seem to be working.
If more than 25% of the population is opposed to it, it will never work.
If you admit a state with 40% irreconcilables, you are asking for trouble.
"The commonwealth or territory status that we have doesn't seem to be working."
Alas, the crux of the problem. I am not the only one that says that statehood will fix these problems, the very problems that many highlight as a roadblock to statehood. What comes first, the egg or the chicken? Commonwealth/ELA worked for the immediate post-depression period. The model now is outdated.
My position is that Puerto Rico is already a de facto state and we just need to take care of some final paperwork. But if it comes to a vote between statehood and independence I'll bet you a case of premium Puerto Rican rum that statehood would get over 90% of the vote.
a fine summary with a good dose of common sense. Thank you, sir.
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Apples and peaches. The Filipinos in WW2 were fighting to free their own country. Filipinos can't be drafted (how many died in Korea 1950-53 or VN 1963-73?). Filipinos are not dying in US uniforms in Iraq. How many Filipinos are currently at WRAMC learning how to walk again?
Also, most Hispanic Catholics, just like most white Catholics, are only nominally Catholic.
Let us ALWAYS honor those brave men and women who served in the past and the present. My point is that even though Filipinos, Samoans, Puerto Ricans, and Chamorro (aka Guamanians) have taken bullets for Uncle Sam, and should be thanked, they are not culturally American.
The problem is that the Statehood movement has always tried to sell Americans on the idea that Puerto Rico is "no different from Ohio as Ohio is different from California." Anyone who has spent time on the island or has dealt directly with folks on the island (as you have and I, to a lesser extent have), knows that this is far from the case.
The bravery of the Puerto Rican soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine cannot be questioned. Nevertheless, they are only Americans in a political sense, not a cultural sense.
The Boricua are not CULTURALLY American. I have been to PR three times, talked with many folks, from all social classes down there, and have observed Puerto Ricans who have moved from the island to the mainland.
PR's watch Univision/Telemundo (y las novelas), love to dance salsa, speak Spanish, THINK Latin. In other words, not American. As I stated before, the kids I went to college with from San Ignacio Prep all told me that they realized that they WEREN'T Americans/Gringos once they actually came to live on the mainland.
Puerto Rico has more culturally in common with Cuba (albeit with less immigration from Spain the last century) and DR than it does with the United States. You can say all you want about a dollar currency, American fast food joints, and consumerism, but Panama has all of those and no Panamanian would consider themselves an American.
If Puerto Rico became a state with nice tropical weather wouldn't hundreds of thousands of anglos move there and overwhelm the locals just like Florida or Hawaii?
They could do what the Haolies do in Hawaii and settle in their own Gringo Ghetto. In the case of Hawaii, we must remember that everyone is a minority and the native language died out a long time ago. This is not true with Puerto Rico.
"Northern Mariana Islands (English, Chamorro, and Carolinian)."
What I believe will matter when I write to my senators and rep telling them I have no interest in having Puerto Rico become a state.
I have no time for them, Puerto Rico joining the US does nothing to benefit us and everything to benefit them.
I say cut them loose and cut our losses at the same time.
They sealed their fate when they chased the Navy away. Since then I could not care less what happens to it and have no interest in having it become a state.
Not only was I born here but my family helped make this country what it is by having someone fight in the revolutionary war, civil war and WWII.
We have enough leftist crybabies, we don't need any more.
Do you really believe that everyone who votes against statehood is an "irreconcilable"? Are you aware that voting for statehood means voting for the imposition of federal income taxes? While I think that's a small price to pay for voting representation in Congress and the right to vote for President, many people vote with their pocketbooks. But those are the same people who might decide to move to the states to work for NASA.
When Nebraskans first voted on whether to become a state, in 1860, the question was defeated by 53.1%-46.9%. A few years later, the Republican-controlled territorial legislature petitioned for statehood anyhow, opposed by the Democrats, and Congress approved an Enabling Act setting forth the conditions for, and treatment of Nebraska under, statehood. The legislature submitted a constitution for the new state of Nebraska to the people for ratification, which was one of the conditions for statehood. The constitution was adopted by only 50.6% to 49.4%. Soon thereafter, Nebraska was admitted as a state. I do not believe that the large percentage of the Nebraska population that opposed statehood became "irreconcilables" after statehood was granted.
BTW, the Puerto Rico Independence Party received only 2.7% of the vote in 2004, which is about one quarter of the percentage of Alaska voters that voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. Puerto Ricans who favor independence will be no more problematic if Puerto Rico becomes a state than are Alaskans who favor Nader's socialist policies.
(glad I can be so entertaining...)
seriously, Clemenza, everything you have said is true, and I know it from deep and personal experience. I lived the other side of the coin.
I was born here in NYC - Dad moved us down to PR when I was 15. I knew spanish and all (though it did get much better down there) but it was really a shock. How much of a shock? Let's put it this way; this is in the '70's, and before I knew what a "spic" was, I learned I was a "gringo".
I went through a lot of life's lessons in PR and elsewhere - for a variety of reasons and ponderings, I see something else besides the cultural aspects you mention, because yes, they are there and what you wrote is true. Along the way, I myself went through an ID period where in the back of my head I wondered what/who I was. Afterwards I realized that even though I didn't turn out to be a little-minority-socialist-imprinted-Rican-who-the-knight-in-shining-armor-from-the-local-dhimmicrat-chapter-could-always-count-on-to-vote-for-him, I was subject to so much bullshit in education, social life, expectations, etc., that I could have turned out different from who I am today.
Take for example the Puerto Rican stateside population - whether island born or - as is the case up here in the northeast - identifying themselves by their ethnic separateness - and imo this identification process has more to do with the embedded socialistic core beliefs (in groups, in what makes me/we/us different from you/yours/them). I see that of the stateside group, most are concentrated in the northeast, and subsequently most tend to vote democrat, believe in big(ger) government, statist solutions, and I see the effects of a declining education system on this group.
I ask myself then, how much of the difference is cultural and how much is environmental? I haven't yet gotten a good answer for that one, but when I look at the political landscape in Puerto Rico, where the dhimmicratic wing of the local Puerto Rican political landscape (los "Populares"... who else???) work their crowds with that same bullshit that the pelosi-reid-kennedy-kerry-clinton-dean pendejos use up here... well, Clemenza, I'm just not so sure the answer is entirely cultural.
I see historical effects in not quite the same way as others - take a Luis Munoz Marin, for example, who upon becoming the first Puerto Rican governor faced the challenge of improving the lot of a poor agrarian-based island whose people used to "immigrate" to the mainland pineapple fields back in the 1940's & '50's (just like the Mexicans & Central Americans do today) and working with the FDR-TRUMAN-JFK-LBJ administrations to improve the standard of living and conditions on the island. He was governor from 1949-1965, he saw it all. Big Democrat Government, Operation Bootstrap, LBJ's Great Society. I believe the democrats have had a grand time using Puerto Rico as their experiment for what big government can do... and to see this as strictly cultural is not the entire answer.
Because of the above, I do not think your first sentence "the Boricua are not CULTURALLY American" is completely true. I honestly believe that for lots of Ricans - especially many living in the northeast/NYC area - they define themselves as Puerto Rican and not American because everyone else around the northeast uses this same mode of thought. And when I see a kid ID himself as a "Boricua" but who has never lived in the island, who doesn't speak Spanish, doesn't have the beautiful Spanish cultural-linguistic imprint that obliges him to use the "usted" when addressing his elders with respect... this is not a "cultural" expression, it's more like a self-defense mechanism for someone who doesn't know better. In other words, environmental.
I don't find fault in your explanation, nor disagree with your process. I know there aren't many folks who think like me, but that's nothing different. Perhaps there will be a day when there won't be a democratic governor who cravenly sucks up to anti-Navy sentiment over a tragic death (being hoorahed by the usual leftist suspects and MSM) and then punks out when the jobs supporting that base are removed... but like in the rest of our Country, we're not the only ones with problems like this.
I think there's more of an environmental and political aspect to these differences. I think they're played upon by the left, because that is what they're good at, playing the groups against each other.
I used to be pawn in that game, Clemenza, but I learned. I'm more than that. I'm an American. E Pluribus Unum... all these separate identities inside of me that the Gramsci's of the world tried to work, with really only one goal; to ensure that I would emphasize my life as surely as I was supposed to emphasize my identity, as a PUERTORICAN-american. Have you ever noticed that, Clemenza? How, when people so commonly nowadays refer to themselves as "1/4 this; 1/8th that..." the emphasis is always on the first identity in that hyphenation? Well, I reject that. Categorically. Soy Americano. Sono Americano. I am an American.
ok, enough of this stream of consciousness. Like I mentioned above, your comments are true. It's just that I believe they are not conclusive. There's plenty yet to write about the story of the People of Borinquen. It is my prayer that my fellow countrymen from the land of my father will write their tale as Americans.
A dissenting minority opinion that flew in the face of practice and law going back to the original founders, signers and authors of the Constitution.
My pleasure, sir.
The Puerto Rico question always seems to be debated with emotion, not logic. I hope to see the day when we move beyond that for everyone's good.
So, you're saying that the Constitution of the United States provides for the federal government to acquire territories anywhere upon the earth, by conquest or treaty, and to hold them as mere colonies or provinces, - the people inhabiting them to enjoy only such rights as Congress chooses to accord them? Isn't that like a despotic or monarchical government? Didn't the founding fathers have a dust up with a certain King george in the 18th century about precisely that? Isn't government by consent of the governed key to the American experiment in democracy?
Could you please point me to the article of the Constitution that allows this?
Thanks to both. But I'll still refer you to Justice John Harlan's dissenting opinion in post number 1. How do we fix that?
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