Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ), Testimony before the House Natural Resources Committee, October 4, 2000, p. 7. Now, it seems to me that if something looks like a duck and it acts like a duck and it talks like a duck, we all know that it is probably a duck. But if something would look like a territory, act like a nation, and walk like a State, I think we know what it is, too. It is unconstitutional and legislatively unattainable.Read More »Rep. Jim Saxton
Rep. Kildee (D-MI), Statement before the House Natural Resources Committee, October 4, 2000, p. 29. I think this proposal is legal fiction, at best, and a hoax, at worst. I do not see how it can be done. But if it could be done, if this legal fiction somehow could be defictionalized, then you could have that theoretical situation of one U.S. citizen voting against another U.S. citizen in the [United Nations]. It is never going to happen because I think this thing is patently unconstitutional.Read More »Rep. Kildee
Resident Commissioner Luis G. Fortuno, Response to Written Questions Submitted by Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Senate Energy Committee, November 15, 2006, p. 59. The fundamental problem with the Governor’s proposal is that it would invite Puerto Rico to choose a status proposal that is incompatible with the Constitution and basic laws and policies of the United States and, thus, is not a status option.Read More »Resident Commissioner Luis G. Fortuno
Governor Anibal Acevedo-Vila, written Responses to Questions submitted by Senator Craig (R-ID), Senate Energy Committee, November 15, 2006, pp. 49-51.Read More »Governor Anibal Acevedo-Vila
Senator Larry Craig (R-ID), Statement before the Senate Energy Committee, November 15, 2006, p. 12. [I]t is the responsibility of the federal and local government to ensure that commonwealth proposals the U.S. Department of Justice has labeled “illusory” and “deceptive” are not allowed to appear on self-determination ballots.Read More »Senator Larry Craig
Representative Jose Serrano (D-NY), Statement before the House Natural Resources Committee, March 22, 2007, p. 14. [N]o one in Puerto Rico supports the present status. When they say they support commonwealth, they support a new commonwealth, which I call a letter to the Three Kings or a letter to Santa Claus. Because it says let me be a state, but let me be an independent nation; let me change, but not change.Read More »Representative Jose Serrano
Resident Commissioner Luis G Fortuno (R-PR), Statement before the House Natural Resources Committee, March 22, 2007, pp. 6-7. Governor Acevedo’s proposal for enhanced commonwealth, as included in his party’s 2004 platform, provides, among other things, number one, that Puerto Rico would be a sovereign nation but in permanent union with the U.S. as part of a covenant to which the United States will be permanently bound.Read More »Resident Commissioner Luis G Fortuno
Committee on Natural Resources Report, Puerto Rico Democracy Act of 2007 (H.R. 900), Report No. 110-597, April 22, 2008, pp. 5,9 and 11. Since the mid-1970’s. . . the Puerto Rican economy has stagnated and fallen well behind that of the nation as a whole. In 1984, Hernandez Colon was re-elected as Governor on the pledge to focus his attention on the economy rather than status. The [Natural Resources] Committee was asked to conduct hearings on the state of the Puerto Rican economy. These hearings made it plain that economic solutions on the Island are largely tied to political solutions. Policies that are appropriate for a prospective State may not be appropriate for a prospective independent nation, and vice-versa. Accordingly, Puerto Rico’s lack of direction towards a permanent political status made it difficult to devise federal policies towards the Island that were sensible and informed.Read More »Committee on Natural Resources Report
Attorney General and Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh, as quoted by Pedro Rosselló, Governor of Puerto Rico, Testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, May 6, 1999. [F]ormer United States Attorney General Dick Thornburgh has carefully scrutinized the results of our 1998 plebiscite, and the following sentences are excerpted from essays that Mr. Thornburgh has written on the topic.Read More »Testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee,
