Texas was it's own Republic before joining the union.
We have never been a territory.
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.
THanks, I was just getting ready to point out that both houses of thier legislature is currently controlled by the PNP, which alings itself with Republicans in Washington.
Texas was it's own Republic before joining the union.
We have never been a territory.
Let me ask it this way -- what is the number one export from Puerto Rico?
I was joking, of course.
Please see Post #27...
Clemenza, Puerto Ricans themselves are a big mixture of intermarriage. I've known Puerto Ricans who will say they're Puerto Rican, and then later tell you they are "half-this (European) and half-that" with a "little bit of this" and "a little bit of that."
But all that is beside the point. I'm against statehood, too.
I suspected as much, but I still think the 52-star flag would look better than the 51-star flag.
Valium ....interesting!
Manufactured goods. Pharmaceuticals, medical devices, rum, electronics.
But the largest economic sector are the service industries. Financials, communications, tourism, transportation, etc.
We grow great coffee too. I'll add to the list tonight. Browse http://www.puertoricowow.com for now if you'd like.
I'm just saying that PRs DO NOT generally intermarry with gringos. They remain separate, unlike most groups in this country that intermarry within two or three generations.
Thank you.
All you need to do is look to the north and take a deep breath of Quebec. Puerto Rico automatically makes a the US a two language country and English only will be gone as a consideration.
Why should they get the choice? I say, leave the decision up to Americans. I would take BC, even with the leftist Vancouver, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, geez even Ontario or the Maritimes before extending the hand of statehood to Puerto Rico.
The big problem with accepting more people into the union, through statehood or otherwise, is this system we have where anyone can be on the government dole. The gov't budget is just growing larger and larger and larger.
IF we could end this system of "free" (federally-funded) programs that just grow bigger and bigger, then maybe we could not only offer full statehood to PR but to other countries, territories, etc. And, if we did, PR would be the first I'd bet most Americans would want admitted. Right now adding another state would be a big mistake.
I appreciate the candidness of your post. Having said that, I've been all over the United States and Puerto Rico is still my first choice where living is concerned, which I do.
Please see Post #95... it's no different than when people call NY or CA that, it's NOT the people who believe in America that is the problem, it's the Idea that is perverted.
i'd be rich if i had a nickel everytime somebody called NY/NYC a POS and wished they'd become their own State / Sink into the bay etc.
PR and the USVI are treated like redheaded stepchildren and it's got to stop.
Honors to your Son your Husband and his Brother...
THEY are the people i WANT as Americans... because they WANT to be one, it's a State of Mind.
FReegards
Here's a link to the foreign aid we give out around the World... http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/trade/files/98-916.pdf
i guess that makes you no different than most of the rest of America then... 8^)
i've lived many places and been round the world, but, still live three miles from where i was born.
If politics didn't matter, I'd be happy to see PR choose statehood or independance. But they do, and we don't need more lib control in a near 50/50 Senate/House/Electoral College/Everything else, if PR becomes a state. Not right now anyways.
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