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Puerto Rico’s status lies in the hands of Congress
The Hill ^ | 2/01/2006 | Oxford Analytica

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.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Extended News; Government; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: 109th; admission; borders; caribbean; congress; culture; dreamon; language; puertorico; rosello; statehood; vieques
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To: AuH2ORepublican

"culturally conservative"

... but economically leftist? So that the Republicans would be big government/neo conservatives not small goverment fiscal conservatives?

In other words government would be in our face and in our checkbook. Not something I thought an AuH2O Republican would favor.


161 posted on 02/01/2006 5:09:34 PM PST by evilC ([573]Tag Server Error, Tag not found)
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To: YankeeGirl
Doesn't sound a whole lot different than our southern heritage.

Really? Pass the koolaid sweetheart.

162 posted on 02/01/2006 5:28:35 PM PST by wardaddy (Southern American)
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To: wtc911

That is about what I figured but you said it better and nicer.


163 posted on 02/01/2006 5:29:42 PM PST by wardaddy (Southern American)
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To: Revenge of Sith

I'm a Southern Prod and have found Catholics to be more socially liberal than me but that's purely my observations.


164 posted on 02/01/2006 5:33:10 PM PST by wardaddy (Southern American)
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To: backtothestreets

Please read Post #27...


165 posted on 02/01/2006 7:59:12 PM PST by MplsSteve
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To: dvwjr

Please read Post #27...


166 posted on 02/01/2006 8:00:49 PM PST by MplsSteve
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To: Jim Noble
If more than 25% of the population is opposed to it, it will never work.

If even 10% are against it, it will never work. I say this as someone who was in the San Juan hotel when it was burned down by the Puerto Rican liberation group. More than one hundred people died in that fire. The head of the group that set the fire had been accused of the Connecticut Brinks robbery in which guards will killed and the money stolen to underwrite the separatist movement. They are a group that will never accept statehood.

167 posted on 02/01/2006 8:14:42 PM PST by ladyjane
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To: backtothestreets
Its sure worked with Puerto Rico, hasn't it? The majority of the population speaks broken English, as a SECOND language. Their primary language is gutteral, Carribbean Spanish (the equivalent of patois or Ebonics).

Remember that 1. It took the introduction of mandatory public schooling and the banning of any language other than English to get the Cajun and Creole populations of Louisiana to start speaking English. In other word, it took government action to correct their behavior. As a matter of fact, little cajun kids would have their noses rubbed into the chalkboard if they spoke French. Would you like to do the same for the kids of PR?

2. The areas aquired from Mexico were largely uninhabited, with cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, to say nothing of East Texas, already largely Anglo by the time of the Mexican War. In those regions where the Latinos remained dominant (western New Mexico, South Texas) Spanish remained the language of choice, although, like Lousiana, the introduction of mandatory public schooling in English caused its usage to dissipate by the mid 1950s. It has only been in recent decades with increased immigration from Mexico that Spanish has made a comeback in the region.

168 posted on 02/01/2006 9:15:52 PM PST by Clemenza (I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked...)
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To: backtothestreets
Did you see the statistics above I posted on welfare dependency and how a third of the cash flow into the average Puerto Rican's pocketbook comes from government transfer payments?
169 posted on 02/01/2006 9:18:28 PM PST by Clemenza (I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked...)
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To: CGVet58; cll

Re: #136. That is, from my perspective, the best post on this thread.


170 posted on 02/01/2006 9:24:17 PM PST by Clemenza (I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked...)
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To: JRios1968

Many PR transplants to the mainland would refer to you as a "coconut." ;-)


171 posted on 02/01/2006 9:29:52 PM PST by Clemenza (I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked...)
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To: wardaddy; Revenge of Sith
I'm a Southern Prod and have found Catholics to be more socially liberal than me but that's purely my observations.

Correct, if you look at the most Catholic states in the U.S. (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey), you would notice that they are the most socially liberal in the country.

Don't let the other Freepers try to sell you on that line that these folks are CINOs. If that is the case, the majority of U.S. Catholics are CINOs.

Take it as you wish from a lapsed Catholic hedonist.

172 posted on 02/01/2006 9:32:19 PM PST by Clemenza (I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked...)
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To: Clemenza

My experience in visiting PR has been that while the upper and upper middle classes speak decent English, the blue collar and lower class inhabitants (majority of the island's population) speak poor or broken English. I guess that would make them no different from the average inhabitant of Detroit or South Atlanta. ;-)

Another thing to keep in mind: Seven Democratic or Five Democratic and Two RINO congressmen, and two Dem Senators.


Good stuff Clemenza as usual....was about to type the same. Give them the Independence...if they get electoral votes in Presidential elections...I don't want the President being decided by Juan Martinez of Viques. No thanks...


173 posted on 02/01/2006 9:32:26 PM PST by My Favorite Headache ("Scientology is dangerous stuff,it's like forming a religion based around Johnny Quest and Haji.")
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To: Clemenza

Wow, then PR makes Washington, DC look like a paradise of free enterprise and initiative, as if that were possible!


174 posted on 02/01/2006 9:44:34 PM PST by Enchante (Democrats: "We are ALL broken and worn out, our party & ideas, what else is new?")
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To: Clemenza
Many PR transplants to the mainland would refer to you as a "coconut." ;-)

Oh well, it isn't like I care what THEY think. I am proud of what I have accomplished on MY OWN. Guess that's why I'm a Conservative and a Republican (BTW, I have seen myself as a Republican my entire conscious life.)

175 posted on 02/01/2006 10:07:11 PM PST by JRios1968 ("Cogito, ergo FReep": I think, therefore I FReep.)
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To: JRios1968
Oh well, it isn't like I care what THEY think. I am proud of what I have accomplished on MY OWN. Guess that's why I'm a Conservative and a Republican (BTW, I have seen myself as a Republican my entire conscious life.)

Amen to you!

176 posted on 02/01/2006 10:20:22 PM PST by Clemenza (I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked...)
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To: Clemenza

folks on a conservative website touting statehood for a demonstrably Democrat voting bloc is pretty bizarro

especially when our hold of power is so feeble


177 posted on 02/01/2006 10:35:43 PM PST by wardaddy (Southern American)
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To: wardaddy

Correct. Today has been depressing on this site. First seeing so called "conservatives" drink the Kool Aid on Giussolini for President, and now the PR statehood brigade.


178 posted on 02/01/2006 10:43:51 PM PST by Clemenza (I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked...)
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To: Clemenza

Giussolini...lol


179 posted on 02/01/2006 10:50:17 PM PST by wardaddy (Southern American)
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To: cll
Close to 50% of the electorate favor the pro-statehood party. ........... This is a matter of civil rights. Four million Americans live under an apartheid system, ruled at the whim of Congress.

"Apartheid system"?

Cut the melodramatics. The choice for the Puerto Rican voter has been clear in several elections and the majority of Puerto Rican voters have spoken:

Prefieren que Puerto Rico sea un estado libre asociado SIN impuestos en vez de que Puerto Rico sea un estado de los EEUU CON impuestos o que sea un estado independiente. Tambien entra el tema de la perdida de la cultura (como paso en Hawaii) si Puerto Rico es nada mas que otro estado de los EEUU o la perdida de los beneficios de ser estado libre asocido si Puerto Rico es una republica independiente.

No le heches la culpa a los americanos por las deciciones que han hecho la mayoria de los puertoriqueños por su propia voluntad.

180 posted on 02/01/2006 10:58:34 PM PST by Polybius
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