CONGRESS is the problem.

Congress has never sponsored any vote on status. The 1952 vote to approve the local constitution was sponsored by Congress, but it was not a status vote, as indicated by the fact that neither statehood, independence, free association nor territory status were on the ballot. The 1967, 1993 and 1998 votes on specific status options defined in the local political process were conducted under local law, and produced confusing and inconclusive results. There is no record of a majority vote in favor of any status accepted by Congress as legally valid. The assertion that the people have voted repeatedly for the status quo is absurd. The status quo is territory status, with the “commonwealth” system of limited local territorial self-government. Instead of the status quo, for the 1993 local status vote “commonwealth” was defined as a super-status with elements of statehood and independence combined. That is what the terms “commonwealth” and “autonomy” mean to those who oppose statehood or independence, but that hybrid of statehood and independence is legally and politically impossible. Even so, in 1993 “commonwealth” defined as a mix of statehood and independence got less than a majority (48%). When the current status as defined by federal law was on the ballot in 1998 it got less than 1% of the vote.

The 2005 and 2007 White House reports recommended a vote to continue the present territory status or seek a non-territory status, and it defined non-territory as meaning statehood or independence. For more go to prrealitycheck.blogvis.com, or to website for The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and get the book “Puerto Rico’s Future: A Time to Decide” by former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, with foreword by President George H.W. Bush.

The problem begins with the UN Special Committee on Decolonization, which mischaracterizes the U.S. position by claiming the U.S. recognizes Puerto Rico as a free associated state. The U.N. and U.S. recognize free association as a political status in which relations between two sovereign nations are defined by an international agreement that is terminable at will by either party. In contrast, Puerto Rico is not a sovereign nation, and remains a territory under U.S. sovereignty. The current federal-territorial association is defined by domestic U.S. law, and allows democratic constitutional self-government only as to local matters not governed by federal law. The U.S. citizens of the territory do not have equal rights of citizenship of self-government at the national level.

Congress has never sponsored any vote on status. The 1952 vote to approve the local constitution was sponsored by Congress, but it was not a status vote, as indicated by the fact that neither statehood, independence, free association or territory status were on the ballot. The 1967, 1993 and 1998 votes on specific status options were conducted under local law, and produced confusing and inconclusive results. There is no record of a majority vote in favor of any status accepted by Congress as legally valid. The assertion that the people have voted repeatedly for the status quo is absurd. The status quo is territory status, with the “commonwealth” system of limited local territorial self-government. Instead, for the 1993 local status vote “commonwealth” was defined as a super-status with elements of statehood and independence combined. That is what the terms “commonwealth” and “autonomy” mean to those who oppose statehood or independence, but that hybrid of statehood and independence is legally and politically impossible. In 1993 “commonwealth” defined as a mix of statehood and independence got less than a majority. When the current status as defined by federal law was on the ballot in 1998 it got less than 1% of the vote.

The 2005 and 2007 White House reports recommended a vote to continue the present territory status or seek a non-territory status, and it defined non-territory as meaning statehood or independence.

For more background, if you want it, go to prrealitycheck.blogvis.com.

Or go to website for The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and get the book “Puerto Rico’s Future: A Time to Decide” by former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, with foreword by President George H.W. Bush.

It’s time for COHA to get its act together.

You are late and wrong, but it’s never too late to rectify your propensity for stating half-truths and for an almost impecable taltent for misreading the Puerto Rico problem and its chief culprit: The UNITED STATES CONGRESS.

In legal terms, Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States subject to the power of Congress alone. However, in practice it would be undemocratic for Congress to unilaterally decide the political status of the Island. Congress must dispose of Puerto Rico in consultation with its inhabitants, but it is not up to Puerto Ricans on their own.

Surely Puerto Ricans must reach a consensus on the status issue, but Congress must provide a clear set of viable status options. To exclude some form of commonwealth as the 2005 Presidential Task Force did, and as was reiterated in the 2007 progress report, would leave out the option of approximately half of the Puerto Rican electorate. Note that in the status plebiscites of 1967, 1993 and 1998, the Puerto Rican electorate did not actually support the status quo but rather a commonwealth with more autonomy. Full Puerto Rican sovereignty with US citizenship may be a constitutional impossibility, but many would argue that an autonomous Puerto Rico maintaining US sovereignty and citizenship should not be discounted.

Robert Borras
Ph.D. Candidate, Queen’s University Canada