The House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday afternoon that would allow residents of Puerto Rico to choose from three status options in a binding special election and end its 70-year-old current territorial status.
The bill, known as the Puerto Rico Status Act, would establish a plebiscite to be held in November 2023 in which eligible voters would choose from three options: statehood, independence or sovereignty in free association with the United States.
There were 233 votes in favor and 191 votes against the bill. The votes occurred mostly along party lines, with Democrats overwhelmingly voting in favor of the measure. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, a Democrat from New York with roots in Puerto Rico, was the temporary speaker during the vote.
“Today, for the first time in our nation’s history, the United States will acknowledge its role as a colonizing force and Puerto Rico’s status as an extended colony,” she said on the floor Wednesday.
If the bill becomes law, it would be the first time Congress would have to accept the outcome of a referendum on the island to determine the American territory’s political future. The plebiscite would not include the island’s current political system as an option, bringing the decadeslong current commonwealth status to an end.
If voters choose statehood, the island would join the U.S. as the 51st state; if they opt for independence, Puerto Rico would become a sovereign state with authority over its laws, economy and citizenship. Under the free association option, the island would be an independent nation with foreign and economic agreements with the United States, as well as U.S. citizenship for its residents for a limited time.
The bill also provides funding for a bilingual nonpartisan educational campaign to explain the three options to eligible voters in Puerto Rico. Any of the status options would require a majority vote to win. If this doesn’t happen, there would be a March 2024 runoff election where the two top options would face off.
Democratic Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources that oversees issues about Puerto Rico and other territories, along with New York Democrat Nydia Velázquez, Puerto Rico Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González, Florida Rep. Darren Soto, and House Majority Speaker Steny Hoyer are the main sponsors of the bill.
Velázquez, the first woman of Puerto Rican descent elected to Congress, said Wednesday morning that the bill would move the island toward decolonization. She called Puerto Rico’s current political status “un-American.”
“Colonialism has eaten away our people’s sense of dignity and self-worth,” she said, “Colonialism is not only humiliating for Puerto Rico, but it is an embarrassment for the United States.”
To become a bill, the law still needs to be passed in the Senate and be signed by President Joe Biden.
Over a century of U.S. rule
The United States invaded Puerto Rico in 1898 and established military rule on the island after triumphing over Spain in the Spanish-American War. Puerto Ricans later became U.S citizens in 1917 under the Jones-Shafroth Act, and Congress first allowed the island to elect its first governor in 1948. Since 1952, the island has been under its current political status, known as "Estado Libre Asociado," or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, when eligible voters on the island voted for this form of governance through a constitutional referendum.
Under the commonwealth, Puerto Rico chooses its own governor, two-chamber legislature and municipal mayors, but Puerto Ricans on the island cannot vote in the general U.S. presidential elections. Its residents also don’t pay federal income tax. The island has a resident commissioner that represents 3.2 million residents in Congress — more constituents than any other House member. The commissioner can participate in committees and introduce legislation, but has no vote.
Puerto Rico’s political status is the subject of fierce debate and its local political parties have historically been organized around the issue. Backers of the current status, which has lost the favor it once commanded, say that the status allows the benefits of a close political and economic relationship with the United States while allowing the island to maintain sovereignty and culture.
Those who oppose it, which include people who support a permanent relationship with the United States through statehood or the island becoming an independent country, argue that the current political status is a vestige of colonialism and blame the commonwealth for the island’s woes. Puerto Rico has lost hundreds of thousands of residents in the last decade, weathered a severe economic crisis that led to the government’s bankruptcy, and struggled through the aftermath of hurricanes and earthquakes.
The most recent political status referendum was held in November 2020, with about 55% of the island’s 2.3 million eligible voters participating. It asked: “Should Puerto Rico be admitted immediately into the Union as a State?,” with 52.52% of voters saying yes, and 47.48% voting against. It’s the most recent of six status referendums that have taken place on the island since the late 1960s. However, these plebiscites were nonbinding, and Congress was not required to take action based on their results.
Puerto Rico’s future
In Congress, supporters of the bill have emphasized that it is a way to allow Puerto Ricans to choose their own political future while moving away from territorial status. Backers of the bill include representatives with roots in Puerto Rico from both parties, including Velázquez, Ocasio Cortez, Soto and González.
Meanwhile, detractors say that the bill was not decided in a transparent way and that the options presented do not fully discuss the consequences each could have on the island. Others believe that the current political commonwealth status should have been included as one of the options.
Some critics have also taken issue with the bill’s stipulations that if Puerto Rico were to become independent, it would have to adopt democratic principles such as due process, freedom of speech and press, and equal protection under the law. While they acknowledged that they agree with these ideas, they question why Congress should determine what it would include in Puerto Rico’s constitution if it were a sovereign state.
Grijalva, a main sponsor, said the draft legislation was the result of a “participatory and informed process” where hundreds of comments from the public were taken into consideration during the drafting of the bill. He said that as a person of Mexican descent and indigenous ancestry, he felt a “sense of solidarity” with the people of Puerto Rico. He linked the island’s struggles to its current political status.
“The current colonial territory status is no longer viable and is incapable of providing either adequate political or economic benefits,” he said. “Puerto Rico’s current status is what impedes its economic development.”
Meanwhile, Republican Bruce Westerman of Arkansas, who belongs to the Committee on Natural Resources, argued that the committee had not held a hearing on the bill and that decisions had been made through “backroom negotiations.” He said the legislation contained “many concerning and unresolved issues.”
“The question of Puerto Rico’s political status is a life-altering decision for the people of Puerto Rico,” he said, “This bill should have been debated ... It’s bad policy.”
Federico de Jesús, a senior adviser for the political organization Power4Puerto Rico, said the bill had reached the floor through an “undemocratic, untransparent and unfair” process and criticized the lack of public hearings.
He also said that the status options presented had critical ambiguities that had not been solved. The law, he told the Miami Herald, doesn’t address whether schools, courts and the legislature would have to operate in English should the island became a state, or how the island’s debt would be calculated into the tax rate.
“If you don’t provide all of the details, then you are trying to fool people or doing an incomplete process, neither of which is a true self-determination mechanism for the people to determine their own future,” he said.
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(Miami Herald staff writer Omar Rodríguez Ortiz contributed to this story.)
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