Finally, Statehood For Puerto Rico? Or Independence?

Not If The Republicans Have Anything To Say About It

Conservatives don’t want anything to change. So yesterday when the House voted on HR 8393, Raul Grijalva’s Puerto Rico Status bill only 16 Republicans joined every Democrat in voting for it. The bill is pretty simple and straight-forward. It will provide “for a plebiscite to be held on November 5, 2023, to resolve Puerto Rico's political status. Specifically, such plebiscite shall offer eligible voters a choice of independence, sovereignty in free association with the United States, or statehood. The Puerto Rico State Elections Commission shall carry out a nonpartisan voter education campaign through traditional paid media and make available at all voting locations voter education materials related to the plebiscites. All voter educational materials and ballots used to carry out this bill shall be made available in English and Spanish.” It passed 233-191.

The 16 Republican ayes were Don Bacon (NE), Liz Cheney (WY), Rodney Davis (IL), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA), Mayra Flores (TX), Andrew Garbarino (NY), Anthony Gonzalez (OH), Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA), Bill Huizenga (MI), Dave Joyce (OH), John Katko (NY), Dan Newhouse (WA), Bill Posey (FL), Maria Salazar (FL), Lloyd Smucker (PA) and Fred Upton (MI). I bolded the names of the Republicans who are leaving Congress next month.

Alan Grayson who was born in the Bronx and who was formerly the congressman from Orlando— two of the most Puerto Rican-rich cities in America— was happy to see the vote go the way it did. “No group of people,” he told me a few minutes after it passed, “can hold any other group in chains. The future of Puerto Rico is for the people of Puerto Rico to decide. There is no other way.” Unfortunately, there are several senators who feel otherwise, including the two who represent Florida.

After passage, NY Times reporters Emily Cochran and Patricia Mazzei wrote that the bill “is all but certain to fall short of the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster in the Senate, where most Republicans are opposed, and there is little time left under this Congress before the GOP takes control of the House in early January, likely burying the effort for at least the next Congress. But the bipartisan vote— the bill passed 233 to 191— was a symbolic statement by the House that Puerto Rico’s status as a colonial territory was both untenable and unwanted by many of its voters… Puerto Ricans sought greater self-determination for decades, with the island’s territorial status deeply dividing its people. The three main political parties, which do not neatly align with Democrats and Republicans, are also divided over the question of status: The Puerto Rican Independence Party favors separating from the United States; the New Progressive Party favors statehood, and the Popular Democratic Party favors remaining a U.S. commonwealth.

Puerto Rico has held six plebiscites on whether it should become a state, most recently in 2020, when 52 percent of voters on the island endorsed the move. None of the plebiscites has been binding, however, and turnout has often been low, amid boycotts by critics who support the status quo or independence.

Though the Republican Party platform, which has not been updated since 2016, supports statehood for Puerto Rico, Republicans in Congress have distanced themselves from that position, fearing that a Puerto Rican state could result in the election of more Democrats— a notion challenged by a recent strain of social conservatism within the island’s politics.

Congress [meaning Republicans] is also unlikely to welcome as a state an island that has among the highest poverty levels in the United States and where most people’s primary language is Spanish.

Jenniffer González-Colón, the resident commissioner of Puerto Rico and its lone representative in Congress, backed a compromise measure among competing plans. A Republican, Ms. González-Colón is a member of the Puerto Rican political party that supports statehood, but acknowledged the “political realities in this Congress” had resulted in the compromise. Gov. Pedro Pierluisi, who is also a member of the statehood party and was present in the House for the vote, is a Democrat, underscoring the island’s complicated political allegiances.

“This bill is not perfect, but at least it will advance the issue,” González-Colón said on the House floor, pointedly reminding her colleagues that because of the island’s territory status, she could not vote on its passage. With passage of the bill, González-Colón said that the House was “recognizing and making clear that Puerto Rico’s century-old territorial status is the problem and cannot be part of the solution.”

The legislation, hastily scheduled for a vote just a day earlier, is the product of laborious negotiations among factions on Capitol Hill, which had pushed for separate bills that would help relieve Puerto Rico of its territory status.

Representative Steny Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the majority leader, and Representative Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, helped broker the agreement among Puerto Rican officials, lawmakers who support statehood for the island and lawmakers who have argued that the United States should back a self-determination process for the island.

…But Power 4 Puerto Rico, a a coalition of diaspora organizations, urged lawmakers to vote no, calling the bill in a statement “a Trojan horse” that “offers only a fraction of information masquerading as decolonization and tramples over the right of Puerto Ricans to full transparency and a fair process.”

Several Republicans also opposed the measure, with some lawmakers criticizing the Democratic majority for excluding them from the final days of negotiations and arguing that there were unresolved questions about the role of the United States in helping the island transition to the voters’ chosen outcome.

…Democrats defended the compromise, even as lawmakers like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat with Puerto Rican heritage, conceded that they found elements of the measure lacking.

“The gains that are made here are a watershed moment,” said Ocasio-Cortez, who presided over the House vote. She added the bill was “a way point and a steppingstone for the future of our island.”