In today's episode, I'll be talking about Representative
Darren Soto's Puerto Rico statehood admissions bill and why I think it's the most recent iteration of a very old move.
Let's begin.
Hi, my name is Andre Mercado-Vásquez and welcome to the PRF Review—the show based on the podcast Puerto Rico Forward which
you can listen to on various platforms like iTunes, Google Play, Spotify;
but, most importantly, you can support through Patreon where we have received so much
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we're so humbled by all of you that have reached out and you let us know that you like what we're doing.
That's what we're doing. We want to make the Puerto Rico issue a politically relevant
issue, so thank you so much for letting us know that we're doing it, and
let us know what you would like us to do in the future. You can write to me at puertoricoforward@gmail.com.
Now, let's just jump right into the main content. A couple of days ago—I think it was last week—
Representative Darren Soto, a Democrat from Florida,
presented a bill that essentially would—if approved,
if declared admitted—
would have Puerto Rico become the 51st
US state in 90 days once it's approved. Now, that is very
interesting.
Unfortunately, as of today, the text—the actual text of the bill—isn't available, so if you head over to congress.gov and
you look up the bill, which is H.R.
1965, you won't find any actual text that you can read from it yet. So, I'm gonna go off an
article published on
March 28th 2019
on Caribbean Business, which is a local news outlet.
It was written by María Soledad
Dávila Calero, and its titled "Puerto Rico statehood admission bill introduced in U.S. Congress".
I'm going to quote straight from this article:
"The bill does not seek a change to the rule of law of Puerto Rico or the
federal laws that are not directly affected by the change of status.
'All the territory laws enforced in Puerto Rico on the date of the enactment of this [bill] shall—continue in force and effect
in the State, except as modified by this Act; and be subject to repeal or amendment by the
legislature and the Governor of Puerto Rico.' 'All the laws of the United States shall have the same force and effect as
on the date immediately prior to
the date of admission of Puerto Rico into the Union as a State,
except for any provision of law that treats Puerto Rico and its residents
differently than the States of the Union and their residents, which shall be amended as of the date of admission
to treat the State of Puerto Rico and its residents equally with the other States of the
Union and their residents.'" End of quote. Now,
this is very interesting. It's very simple, but
taking into consideration how important the Puerto Rico issue is for a lot of people, when they heard about this,
you know, it started a lot of buzz. This is
a representative, this is an actual person who has a vote and voice in Congress,
presenting a bill for Puerto Rico to move out of its colonial status. Now,
is this the first time though that this happens? Not by a long shot.
Just a quick
search online
reveals a plethora of different bills that have been presented in Congress with the purpose of
changing Puerto Rico's status
beyond a colonial one, and we can find these as far as
1936
with the Tydings bill; and
the title is "Bill to Provide for a Referendum in Puerto Rico on the Question of Independence, to Provide for Carrying It into Effect, and
for Other Purposes". In that same year,
another representative,
Vito Marcantonio,
presented H.R.
12611—so it's HR
twelve six eleven actually—it's titled "Bill to Provide for the Granting of Sovereignty to the Island of Puerto Rico, and to Provide for Neighborly Relations
with the Proposed Government of Puerto Rico".
Now, just a quick correction: the first bill I mentioned—the Tydings bill—it's by Senator Millard Tydings.
So, if we skip a few years ahead of those two, we go to 1989's
S.712 titled "Puerto Rico Status Referendum Act". We move forward again:
1990's H.R.4765 titled "Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act". Again we jump ahead: in
1991, we have H.R.
316—"Puerto Rico
Self-determination Act". Then, we have S.44—"Puerto Rico Status Referendum Act"—presented in 1991. Then, we have in
2007, we have "Puerto Rico Democracy Act of 2007"—S.
1936.
Then, we move on ahead more, and there's more
where this comes from. H.R.
2499—"Puerto Rico Democracy Act of 2010".
Moving forward, we have H.R.2000—"Puerto Rico Status Resolution Act". We have H.R.
727—"Puerto Rico Statehood Admission Process Act".
We have H.R.260—"Puerto Rico Admission Act". We have H.R.900. Now, this one's interesting.
It was presented by Luis Gutiérrez in
2017.
It's titled—it's a long one—"To recognize..." Sorry,
let's start again: "To recognize Puerto Rico's sovereign nationhood under either independence or free
association and to provide for a
transition process, and for other purposes."
That's not the last one actually. In
2018,
H.R.6246—" Puerto Rico Admission Act of
2018", and that one brings us to the most current one, H.R.1965—
"To set forth the terms for the admission of the territory of Puerto Rico as a State of the Union."
So,
what are we looking at? We're looking at a situation of
repetitive
actions. You know, we have lots of bills that have been presented, some of them proposing statehood, some of them promoting
independence—sovereignty—and some of them just simply stating that they're going to begin a process of
determining Puerto Rico's status.
Either case, any of those options,
it's a way of getting Puerto Rico out of colonialism or out of a colonial
status—political status.
Now, is it reasonable to believe that Congress would approve any of these bills? I don't think so.
Why? Well, Congress has had its hands on the wheel for a hundred and twenty years.
It has plenary powers over Puerto Rico as a territory of the US, and it hasn't changed its political status.
Let's put it another way: if Puerto Rico's political status
were such that
it hindered the interest of the US, or it hindered the interest to which Congress responds to,
the status would have changed a long time ago,
but it's remained the same for a hundred and twenty years—essentially the same for a hundred twenty years. What does that tell you?
What it tells you, more likely, is
the fact that Puerto Rico's current
colonial status
serves a purpose, and that purpose is important for Congress. Whatever that purpose may be.
Whatever the purpose may be, I think it would be an economic purpose. As
colonies are, they're used to be exploited and to serve the market that belongs to the colonial owner.
I've talked about that in the podcast. The point is: Congress would have to go against its self-interest motive
to behave in a way that would benefit the people of Puerto Rico when it comes to the status question.
So, it's not reasonable,
I think, to expect that Congress would just one day wake up and and have a collective change of mind—
collectively all the members of Congress be in agreeance, or the majority of the Congress be in agreeance that
Puerto Rico's status needs to change because it's the right thing to do and that, for some reason at that point, there's a president in charge
that
believes the same—not like Donald J. Trump
that's always framing the Puerto Rico issue in such a negative light where he tries to make it seem like
an archipelago of less than 4 million people somehow is taking advantage of the most powerful nation of the world,
but I digress. We would have a lot of
elements... we would need a lot of elements in place in order for Puerto Rico's status to change through the will of Congress,
through a bill that's presented by a representative. It would be very difficult and just beyond the
range of logic
that that would happen.
Now, the other option would be a plebiscite.
Lots of people have said that "Ok, so there was plebiscites in Puerto Rico, what happens to those?"
Well, I don't believe that a plebiscite is the right way out of the
Puerto Rico colonial condition because plebiscites are usually framed within
the ideals of political parties. You have three political parties in Puerto Rico each one representing the main status options: statehood,
independence, and the status quo.
So, in a plebiscite,
unfortunately each status option's
discussion is framed within the values and the ideals of political parties, and political parties...
if you're a party that at your center you have X status
option—for example, if you are the party that represents statehood or you're the party that represents independence—
it's not likely that you're going to have the ability of discussing each status option in
an honest way. You're going to try to present it in the most positive way
possible. Of course, you could also
try to present the other status option in the most negative way possible,
but you would be losing time and effort that you could dedicate to trying to sell your own status option.
So, there's political
considerations when it comes to plebiscites in Puerto Rico, and that's unfortunate.
What do I believe that's the right way to move out of the colonial condition?
I already discussed that in a
podcast episode titled "How to Solve PR's Status Problem"—
Puerto Rico's status problem. Look it up, and you can hear for yourself
the explanation I give, but, in general, the right path out of
colonialism would be through a mechanism
that would be the expression of the people, and the
people have to express themselves in an informed manner, and you can do that through a constitutional status convention—
which is a mechanism that has been recognized by the international community as being a valid way to
find a status option and to
embark on a journey, on a transition towards that status option—and in a constitutional status convention,
you would have the ability of taking each status out of
the framework of the political parties as far as you can; you're never going to be able to eliminate the influence of political parties in Puerto Rico,
because you wouldn't, in general, in any real country that has political parties, but
at least through the
constitutional status convention, you'd have a process of debate. You'd have a process of
considering the pros and the cons of each status option and with those definitions
clearly made
based not on political values as exclusively but rather on
considerations that go beyond parties—considerations such as: what are the long-term effects?
What would be the requirements, or what would be the conditions that we would be able to
meet or what would be the conditions that we would be willing to accept from Congress, if Congress
offered us X
status option? So, these questions can be
really
answered and really worked on through a constitutional status convention in a way that just isn't available through a plebiscite.
The other benefit is that Congress and people from Congress would no longer have the
standard excuse of "oh, the people of Puerto Rico haven't defined themselves" or
"there's no real consensus" or "the people of Puerto Rico haven't really chosen or made up their mind."
Through the constitutional status convention, you blow that out of the water, because you have a whole process of
considering each status option, and you have a whole process of defining each status option and actually trying to reach a
consensus within the members or the groups of people that believe in that status option. So,
if we really are serious about
moving Puerto Rico beyond a colonial condition, we have to be serious about the method we choose.
That's going be all for today. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for listening. ¡Que viva Puerto Rico!