House Panel Vote Reignites Statehood Fight in Puerto Rico
By Mike Williams, Cox News Service
September 29, 2009

House panel's vote reignites statehood fight in Puerto Rico

But some say they are growing weary of battle

By Mike Williams, Cox News Service | December 23, 2007

SAN JUAN - The governor is under criminal investigation, crime and unemployment are soaring, and the economy is faltering as foreign firms are shutting down factories.

But to hear the politicians on this Caribbean island tell it, the only real issue on the public agenda is whether Puerto Rico should become the 51st state, ending its decades-old status as a US commonwealth.

A bill calling for a referendum on the issue recently won approval in a US House committee, triggering a new round of intense debate on the island, despite the fact that final congressional approval and an actual vote are still iffy propositions at best.

After decades of argument, though, some Puerto Ricans appear to be tiring of the seemingly eternal debate over what is known here as the status issue.

"The reigning ideology on Puerto Rico is the dollar, not status," said Augusto Font, 68, a businessman who sells his wife's interior furnishings out of a small shop called DMR Designs in the Old San Juan historic district. "The politicians coalesce around status, but I think most people are more worried about their economic standards. I think it's time for a new paradigm on the island."

But with an election year looming, it seems a given that the statehood issue will once again dominate. The two major political parties are already lining up salvos for a campaign in which voters will hear a familiar litany of charges and countercharges relating to the two major options: statehood vs. commonwealth.

Puerto Ricans have long been ambivalent about their relationship with the United States, which claimed the island after winning the Spanish-American War in 1898. After a 1951 referendum, islanders drafted their own constitution, becoming a self-governing "free associated state," one of two US commonwealths (the other is the Northern Marianas islands in the Pacific Ocean).

Commonwealth status brought with it a wealth of benefits and just as many contradictions. Puerto Ricans are US citizens, but cannot vote in mainland elections. They have an elected representative, called a resident commissioner, in Congress, but he has no vote.

Puerto Ricans receive about $10 billion a year in US support, but pay no federal income tax. They serve in the US military - in extremely high numbers in proportion to their population - but have their own national flag and Olympic team. They are intensely proud of fielding their own beauty contestants, with Miss Puerto Rico having won the Miss Universe title five times in the pageant's 55-year history.

But for all the local fury on the issue, a final decision on Puerto Rico's status can only be decided by Congress, which must approve a binding referendum for the island. Despite decades of debate, Congress has been unwilling to schedule such a vote.

That hasn't stopped local leaders from pressing for island-wide elections on the issue.

Puerto Rico's 4 million residents have voted twice on statehood in recent years, but if anything, those elections only further muddied the waters. In 1993 and 1998, voters were almost equally split between the statehood and commonwealth options, with each receiving about 45 percent support and the island's small but vocal group calling for independence garnering the balance.

In 2009 the issue could be muddier still.

Governor Anibal Acevedo Vila is embroiled in a federal campaign finance investigation, which could influence his reelection prospects. Vila's Popular Democratic Party wants an enhancement of the island's autonomy under the current commonwealth rubric.

The pro-statehood New Progressive Party is split between competing candidates, former governor Pedro Rossello and the island's representative in Congress, Luis Fortuno. One of the two will emerge from next spring's primary as the pro-statehood gubernatorial candidate.

Longtime observers of the island's freewheeling political scene are all over the map with predictions.

"I believe the statehood party will win," said analyst Juan Manuel Passalacqua. "And they will hold an election and send a delegation of senators and congressmen to Washington in a self-proclamation of Puerto Rican statehood."

Others disagree.

"If Rossello wins, Puerto Rico will suffer," counters Maximo Cerame Vivas, a columnist for the English-language San Juan Star newspaper. "The change I see this year is the number of oscillating voters, those not tied to either party. They often vote more on local issues, so there is no telling."

Young voters might hold the key, because Puerto Rico's youth are less encumbered by history. Many speak English and have friends and relatives in the United States, where almost as many Puerto Ricans live as on the island.

"I'm for independence," said Vincent Ramirez, 29, who runs an art gallery in Old San Juan. "I think we need new leaders. The politicians all say the same thing, and they are all corrupt. The economy is very bad and people are just tired of it."

Back to Artcile List