Posted on 03/15/2012 7:52:12 AM PDT by Skeez
Campaigning in Puerto Rico today, Rick Santorum said that Puerto Ricans needed to adopt English as their official language if they wanted to make a serious push for U.S. statehood. Santorum is in Puerto Rico making his pitch for the GOP's primary on Sunday.
"Like any other state, there has to be compliance with this and any other federal law," Santorum said. "And that is that English has to be the principal language. There are other states with more than one language such as Hawaii but to be a state of the United States, English has to be the principal language."Reuters goes on to report that neither the U.S. Constitution nor any federal law requires that a state speak English. Some states have established English as an official language anyway. To be charitable to Santorum, he did say that English should be the "principal" language, not something to be legally required. Puerto Ricans typically learn English in high school, but census data shows only about 30% of Puerto Ricans rate their ability to speak English "very well."
Santorum's presence in Puerto Rico may seem odd - governor Luis Fortuno has endorsed his rival Mitt Romney, and the candidate perceived as a moderate has won massive portions of the electorate in the past few years - John McCain, Bob Dole and George H.W. Bush all won massive majorities there.
The people of Puerto Rico go to the polls on Sunday to vote in their GOP primary. Puerto Rico awards a small number of delegates - twenty-three - but more than some small states like Delaware.
Risk’s minders should have advised him against this
ill-concieved statement. PR is Spanish speaking and
that isn’t about to change for anyone.
Last I checked speaking English was not a federal law
The love the Status Quo, let's see what happens when the only two choices are Statehood or Independence.
I agree, that was a dumb thing to say, and it only goes to show he knows nothing about the place.
I agree, that was a dumb thing to say, and it only goes to show he knows nothing about the place.
Legalisms aside, do people disagree with the content of what Santorum said? Should we ever admit a state to the union in which English is not the primary and/or official language???
Stuff like this just grinds my gears. Hey Santorum.... SHUT UP! They don’t want to be a state. WE don’t want them to be a state. Shut your pie hole about stuff you clearly no nothing about. Geez. Is this guy REALLY the best we can do?
No kidding! What a flipping idiot!
Arrrgggg.... he got me so pissed i typed “no” instead of “know”. So I read further. Where in the constitution does it say anything about English speaking being mandatory? (It should, but it doesn’t). He’s embarrassing himself.
I’m confused... was this an issue before he talked about it?
Why? Isn’t there a bad economy he could be discussing?
Or high gasoline prices?
I like Rick, but I think he could use 8 years under Gingrich to grow up a little more. He sounds not “ripe” enough yet for the big job
and 16 years of Gingrich/Santorum would be good
New Mexico was able to transition to mostly-English speaking.
It’s NOT impossible.
Just have PR do English in the elementary schools.
Congratulations Rick. You just alienated the Hispanic vote. Nice going.
Good point. His talking about statehood for P.R. and the status of English there, is similar to George Steph. introducing birth control into a presidential debate. Some things just don’t have to be discussed in presidential campaigns.
No, we should not admit any state where the official language is not English. That’ll never happen in PR, so problem solved. I don’t see why we should care if PR becomes a state anyhow.
We have a big enough challenge keeping English in our OWN schools (lookin' at you, California).
We are doomed.
TS
The world was very different in the 19th century, when New Mexico became part of the U.S. after the Mexican War. Yes, they transitioned to English there. But it may not be so easy to do transitions like that in our politically correct world today.
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