Puerto Rico’s “Commonwealth” (Popular Democratic) Party (PDP) leadership reinforced its preference for Puerto Rico’s current status as a territory of the United States while a group of PDP members continued their break from the party leadership in favor of nationhood in free association with the U.S. at the May 18th meeting of Puerto Rico’s State Elections Commission.Read More »PDP Divided Between Territory and Free Association Options
Puerto Rico’s Resident Commissioner, Pedro Pierluisi, took to the Floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on May 17 to call for “equal treatment for all American citizens, regardless of where they reside.” Citing the territory’s ineligibility for core components of the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, Pierluisi asserted that the unequal treatment of U.S. citizens in federal programs targeting the most vulnerable populations amounts to “geographic discrimination.” Read More »Pierluisi Calls for Equal Treatment for All American Citizens Regardless of Residency
The Energy and Commerce Committee of the House of Representatives voted on April 25 to cut Medicaid funding in the U.S. territories by 65% while leaving Medicaid funding in the fifty states intact, providing a real life example of what it means to lack representation in Congress.Read More »Medicaid Cuts in the U.S. Territories
Christensen Rallies Advocacy Groups To Support Territories in Medicaid Fight _ Representative Donna Christensen U.S. House of Representatives Delegate Donna Christensen, the representative of the… Read More »Groups Support Territories in Medicaid Fight
Polls by Puerto Rico’s major TV and newspaper last December showed that statehood was the most popular option — but that fewer than half of those polled would choose it.Read More »Puerto Rico’s Status: What the Polls Say
Since 1917, Puerto Rican rum has had an excise tax imposed when sold in the U.S., and the U.S. government has sent roughly the same amount of money back to Puerto Rico. In recent years, this “cover-over,” as it’s called, has amounted to about half a billion dollars a year for Puerto Rico. The U.S. Virgin Islands gets the same deal, but they’ve received only a fraction of the income from it — about 20% as much as Puerto Rico.
In an effort to catch up, the Virgin Islands offered Diageo PLC part of the cover-over if they’d move their distillery from Ponce to St. Croix. They agreed, leaving a 6th generation rum company devastated.
The British company, which makes Captain Morgan rum, will cost Puerto Rico about $140 million this year — money that went toward schools, health care, and the island’s infrastructure.Read More »The Rum Wars
Republican candidate Rick Santorum was busy wooing Puerto Rican voters in the primary when he remarked,“As in any other state, you have to comply with this and any federal law. And that is that English has to be the main language. There are other states with more than one language as is the case in Hawaii, but to be a state in the United States, English has to be the main language.”Read More »Santorum’s Misstep
Academic Policy Forum Civil Rights & Equality: Puerto Rico’s Relationship within the Federal Union Fordham Law School March 26, 2009 first posted by the Center for… Read More »Civil Rights & Equality: Puerto Rico’s Relationship within the Federal Union
On June 20, 2011, the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization called on the United States to expedite a process that would allow “Puerto Ricans to fully exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and independence[.]” This was not the first time these nations highlighted the lack of democratic freedom in Puerto Rico to the United Nations – the Special Committee on Decolonization has approved text calling on United States to expedite Puerto Rican self-determination every year since 2006. Will a similar proposal be approved this June?
Read More »Possible U.N. Vote on the Horizon
