Congress Considers Plebiscite Option for Puerto Rico
WASHINGTON _ A key House committee Tuesday approved a bill that would have Puerto Ricans voting by late 2009 if they want to continue as a U.S. territory or opt for a change, including independence or making the island America’s 51st state.
If approved by Congress, the bill would lead to the first-ever, federally mandated binding plebiscite on Puerto Rico’s status since the United States seized the island from Spain 109 years ago.
“I congratulate the members of the Committee on Natural Resources for taking this vital first step in resolving Puerto Rico’s status once and for all,” said Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y.. He co-wrote the bill with Republican Rep. Luis Fortuno, the pro-statehood nonvoting Puerto Rican delegate in the House.
The legislation passed the committee by a voice vote after more than a year of negotiations. In 1998, the House narrowly passed a Puerto Rico status bill but it failed to pass in the Senate.
The bill’s future remains uncertain, however, as two other Puerto Rican members in the House _ Luis Gutierrez. D-Ill. and Nydia Velazquez. D-N.Y. _ sent off a “dear colleague” letter Tuesday saying the legislation had “policy, fairness and transparency problems.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has said she would only bring a Puerto Rico status bill to a floor vote if it had consensus approval.
Under the bill, Puerto Ricans would choose by late 2009 if they want to continue with their current “territorial” status, commonly known as commonwealth and changeable by Congress, or opt for a permanent alternative.
What happens if they chose the latter is not clear. According to Fortuno, the options then would include another plebiscite, a negotiation with the U.S. Congress, or islanders electing a constitutional assembly that would negotiate the island’s status with the U.S. government.
An earlier version of the bill called for a second round of voting to determine if islanders wanted statehood, independence or some kind of free association _ under which future islanders could lose their U.S. citizenship.
Critics, led by Puerto Rico Gov. Anibal Acevedo-Vila, complained that system stacked the deck in favor of statehood by taking the option of an “enhanced commonwealth,” favored by his Popular Democratic Party, off the table after the first round of voting.
Acevedo-Vila and his allies in the U.S. Congress were somewhat unhappy with the compromise passed Tuesday.
“We still have difficulties with the language of what was approved,” said Eduardo Bhatia, the governor’s representative in Washington. “We’ll have to observe this and see how things move ahead. . . . But it is a step in the right direction.”
Fortuno, Serrano and the Bush administration argue that the enhanced commonwealth option, which would allow Puerto Rico to negotiate free trade agreements, was unconstitutional.
Making Puerto Rico a U.S. state also raises thorny questions. The island uses Spanish in schools and its courts, and some Republicans are wary of incorporating eight House members and two senators who presumably would be mostly Democrats.
But some House members fear the compromise didn’t settle an issue that’s been discussed for half a century.
“I don’t think the United States should be in the colonial business,” Neil Abercrombie, D _ Hawaii, said during the committee debate. “I would like to see a conclusion of this. This doesn’t seem to do it. This just leaves it in limbo.”
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