In a recent opinion piece in The Riverdale Press, Gene Roman explains the two competing versions of the pending Puerto Rico Status Act with a straightforward distinction: one bill offers a choice of three political status options, while the other offers four options.
Specifically, Senator Martin Heinrich’s (D-NM) bill provides voters of the next Puerto Rico plebiscite with three choices: statehood or independence, with and without free association. A different version introduced by Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS), adds a fourth option: “commonwealth.”
“By introducing a status bill with four alternatives,” says Roman, “Wicker has revived the controversy associated with the competing definitions of the status known as ‘commonwealth.’ The term ‘commonwealth’ has been used as a euphemistic label to hide the reality of Puerto Rico’s unequal and undemocratic status as a territory of the United States.”
Disenfranchisement?
“Wicker claims that the status act with only three non-territorial options disenfranchises Puerto Rican votes because it omits the ‘commonwealth’ option from consideration,” writes Roman.
To Roman’s point, not having your favorite option on the ballot may very well be a disappointment, but it does not deprive anyone of their basic right to vote, particularly given the complicated history of the “commonwealth” label.
To disenfranchise someone is to deprive them of their essential right to vote. The people of Puerto Rico do not have the right to vote in presidential elections, and this is indeed disenfranchisement. But not having your favorite candidate on the ballot, while discouraging, is not necessarily a disenfranchisement, particularly if there is a thoughtful, justifiable reason behind it, as well as decades of debate.
In the case of the “commonwealth,” the federal government has made it clear for decades that the elements of a unique new “commonwealth status” would be unconstitutional. Putting it on the ballot would therefore be misleading and unfair to voters, since it cannot become a reality under basic Constitutional principles. As Roman says, “An honest, fair, open and transparent self-determination process should only include those status options that produce permanent decolonization through statehood or independence.”
Definitions
The definitions used on status vote ballots in Puerto Rico have been problematic from the beginning.
In his opinion piece, Roman criticizes a state-based advocacy group that complains about how pending Puerto Rico status proposals fail to disclose “the real-world implications of becoming a state or independent country. ”
“With 50 states here and roughly 200 countries across the globe, there is no dearth of details showing how statehood, independence, language and taxation will impact the lives of real people,” Roman writes. The 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution makes it clear that states have the power to make decisions about languages and taxes, as well as all other matters not covered by the Constitution.
As Roman clarifies, “all of the questions asked by opponents of the three-status option Puerto Status Act … have all been answered by the Constitution and policy briefs published by the Congressional Research Service.”
Back in 2006, C. Kevin Marshall, who was U.S. Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice, offered the following comprehensive remarks in Senate testimony:
[T]he ‘New Commonwealth’ option, as we understand it, is not consistent with the Constitution… Puerto Rico may remain in its current Commonwealth, or territorial, status indefinitely, but always subject to Congress’s ultimate authority to alter the terms of that status, as the Constitution provides that Congress may do with any U.S. territory…..If Puerto Rico were admitted as a State, it would be fully subject to the U.S. Constitution, including the Tax Uniformity Clause. Puerto Rico’s favorable tax treatment would generally no longer be allowed. Puerto Rico also would be entitled to vote for presidential electors, Senators, and full voting Members of Congress. Puerto Rico’s population would determine the size of its congressional delegation….[Under the] option of independence, there are several possible ways of structuring it, so long as it is made clear that Puerto Rico is no longer under United States sovereignty.
Next steps
Roman’s essay ended with a statement by former Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig, who testified in 2006 that “the first goal and highest responsibility of Congress is not to promote statehood, independence, or continued territory status, but to facilitate informed self-determination.”
Informed self-determination cannot rely on idealization about a new type of “commonwealth” status. It similarly cannot rely on hypothetical conjecture about basic, well-established concepts like U.S. statehood and independence.
Photo courtesy of Julie Olsen
