Governor seeks to rally PDP on status: ‘Now is the time to defeat statehood’
Puerto Rico Gov. Alejandro García Padilla kept up a renewed focus on the island’s status issue as he called for unity within his commonwealth Popular Democratic Party to combat inroads toward statehood.
“This is the time to beat statehood,” García Padilla said at a PDP assembly in San Juan on Sunday.
The PDP president urged party members to set aside their divisions over the scope of commonwealth and rally in defense of “being Puerto Rican.”
He took aim at statehood supporters, essentially labeling them as anti-Puerto Rican.
“We have to destroy the defeatist forces that base their victories on the defeat of Puerto Ricaness, those who say victory rests on defeating Puerto Ricans and what is Puerto Rican,” the governor said.
“The power of Puerto Ricans is within Puerto Ricans,” he added.
The call came less than a week after García Padilla shifted gears on the island’s status front, pledging to hold another plebiscite before the end of the political term in 2016 and moving away from plans to convene a constituent assembly on the issue.
In announcing the plebiscite plan last week, García Padilla said the PDP’s task now turns to reaching an agreement on a definition for “enhanced commonwealth” to appear on the eventual ballot.
The Popular Democratic Party’s push for an enhanced commonwealth status was dealt a blow in Congress last year when ranking Democratic and Republican members of the U.S. Senate dismissed it as option to resolve Puerto Rico’s status dilemma, signaling it wouldn’t pass the U.S. Department of Justice’s constitutional litmus test.
After testifying in favor of an undefined “enhanced commonwealth” status before a U.S. Senate panel in December, García Padilla highlighted status divisions within the PDP by dismissing the sovereign commonwealth wing of his party as “liberal feathers.”
“They aren’t a wing of the party, they are feathers,” García Padilla said at the time.
The governor struck a more inclusive tone at the PDP assembly on Sunday.
“In the PDP, the status ideal rests on the well-being of the people,” he said. “As president I cannot promote a divided PDP. I call for a united PDP in which conservatives and sovereign-autonomists work together for the people.”
The governor called on PDP members of all stripes to “hit the street” and go door-to-door to defend commonwealth.
“I’m ready,” he said.
Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi, the island’s lone member of Congress and president of the New Progressive Party, said attacks by García Padilla and former Gov. Rafael Hernández Colón are evidence that support for statehood is building.
“You don’t attack something that you claim doesn’t exist,” he said.
Pierluisi reiterated that statehood is the best avenue to rebuild Puerto Rico’s economy, saying the 51st star is “closer than ever.”
“Equal rights are just around the corner,” he said. “We just have to demand them.”
García Padilla’s heightened focus on status comes as the island government grapples with serious fiscal challenges amid an ongoing economic downturn dating back to 2006. The latest employment reports show that while unemployment rate is in decline, the number of people working and the labor participation rate are also dropping. Meanwhile, Puerto Rico has been hit with a series of punishing credit downgrades in the wake of the enactment of a new law that will allow public corporations to restructure their debts through a bankruptcy like process in local courts.
García Padilla’s push for some form of “enhanced commonwealth” and his strident call to “defeat” statehood may also resonate with independence supporters, whose first status choice has represented a small blip in previous plebiscites.
García Padilla said Wednesday his aim is to hold another status plebiscite by the end of the current political term that runs through 2016. The PDP governing board has signed off on the plan.
The governor’s announcement came more than a year after President Barack Obama presented a $3.77 trillion budget proposal for 2014 that includes $2.5 million for voter education and the first federally sanctioned plebiscite in Puerto Rico on options that would resolve the fundamental question of the island’s future political status. Congress approved the funding in January.
García Padilla has backed off plans to hold a constituent assembly on status next year as Obama pushed for a federally funded plebiscite on the issue.
Obama has acted on the status issue and Congress has approved the funds, he noted.
“In that same spirit we accept this challenge,” the governor said Sunday “Now is the moment to defeat statehood.”
The $2.5 million is to be funneled through the U.S. Department of Justice to the Puerto Rico State Elections Commission. The monies could be used after the attorney general has found a commission plan that includes education materials and ballot options to be consistent with the Constitution and basic laws and policies of the United States.
The commission would have equal representation from each of Puerto Rico’s political parties, with a president appointed by the governor. For a status plebiscite under local law last November, the membership was increased to include representatives of each of status option.
Although the federal law approved by Congress and signed by Obama does not prescribe how the ballot should be structured, it does require the U.S. Department of Justice to ensure that any option on the ballot is compatible with the U.S. Constitution, its laws and its public policy.
The plebiscite would be the first federal sanctioned status vote but would be the second referendum within a four-year period. The previous was held on election day in November 2012.
In the first question of the November 2012 two-part referendum, 54 percent of voters said they were not content with the current commonwealth status.
The second question asked what status was preferred. Of the about 1.3 million voters who made a choice, nearly 800,000 supported statehood, some 437,000 backed sovereign free association and 72,560 chose independence. But nearly 500,000 left that question blank.
The White House has said “the results were clear, the people of Puerto Rico want the issue of status resolved, and a majority chose statehood in the second question.”
“Now is the time for Congress to act and the administration will work with them on that effort so that the people of Puerto Rico can determine their own future,” reads a statement by the White House issued in early December 2012.
The Puerto Rican Independence Party and statehood NPP maintain that the results of the two-step plebiscite represent a clear rejection of the continuation of the current territorial status. Those voting “no” included statehood supporters, as well as advocates of independence and free association.
García Padilla and his PDP argue the ballot was rigged against the current status and that the empty ballots represent a protest against commonwealth’s exclusion from the second question. He had pledged to hold a constituent assembly on the status issue in 2014 if a congressionally binding plebiscite was not held.
A similar appropriation was proposed by then President Bill Clinton in 2000 and enacted into law by the Republican Congress in 2000 for a Puerto Rican status choice in 2001. (It was not spent because the funds lapsed before a plan was developed.)
In a March 2011 report, the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico’s Status found that the island’s development needs were hindered by lack of resolution of the ultimate status question. The issue also raises questions about the appropriate federal policies related to Puerto Rico.
The task force also advised, as it did under President George W. Bush, that Puerto Ricans should vote to determine their aspirations among the possible options for Puerto Rico’s status. It identified the possible options as: commonwealth (under which islands exercise local self-government but are subject to broad congressional governing authority under the Territory Clause of the Constitution, may be treated differently than states in federal laws, and do not have voting representation in the federal government; U.S. statehood; Independence, nationhood in a free association with the U.S. (similar to the arrangements that the U.S. has with the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau in the Pacific).
Governor seeks to rally PDP on status: ‘Now is the time to defeat statehood’
The PDP president urged party members to set aside their divisions over the scope of commonwealth and rally in defense of “being Puerto Rican.”
He took aim at statehood supporters, essentially labeling them as anti-Puerto Rican.
“We have to destroy the defeatist forces that base their victories on the defeat of Puerto Ricaness, those who say victory rests on defeating Puerto Ricans and what is Puerto Rican,” the governor said.
“The power of Puerto Ricans is within Puerto Ricans,” he added.
The call came less than a week after García Padilla shifted gears on the island’s status front, pledging to hold another plebiscite before the end of the political term in 2016 and moving away from plans to convene a constituent assembly on the issue.
In announcing the plebiscite plan last week, García Padilla said the PDP’s task now turns to reaching an agreement on a definition for “enhanced commonwealth” to appear on the eventual ballot.
The Popular Democratic Party’s push for an enhanced commonwealth status was dealt a blow in Congress last year when ranking Democratic and Republican members of the U.S. Senate dismissed it as option to resolve Puerto Rico’s status dilemma, signaling it wouldn’t pass the U.S. Department of Justice’s constitutional litmus test.
After testifying in favor of an undefined “enhanced commonwealth” status before a U.S. Senate panel in December, García Padilla highlighted status divisions within the PDP by dismissing the sovereign commonwealth wing of his party as “liberal feathers.”
“They aren’t a wing of the party, they are feathers,” García Padilla said at the time.
The governor struck a more inclusive tone at the PDP assembly on Sunday.
“In the PDP, the status ideal rests on the well-being of the people,” he said. “As president I cannot promote a divided PDP. I call for a united PDP in which conservatives and sovereign-autonomists work together for the people.”
The governor called on PDP members of all stripes to “hit the street” and go door-to-door to defend commonwealth.
“I’m ready,” he said.
Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi, the island’s lone member of Congress and president of the New Progressive Party, said attacks by García Padilla and former Gov. Rafael Hernández Colón are evidence that support for statehood is building.
“You don’t attack something that you claim doesn’t exist,” he said.
Pierluisi reiterated that statehood is the best avenue to rebuild Puerto Rico’s economy, saying the 51st star is “closer than ever.”
“Equal rights are just around the corner,” he said. “We just have to demand them.”
García Padilla’s heightened focus on status comes as the island government grapples with serious fiscal challenges amid an ongoing economic downturn dating back to 2006. The latest employment reports show that while unemployment rate is in decline, the number of people working and the labor participation rate are also dropping. Meanwhile, Puerto Rico has been hit with a series of punishing credit downgrades in the wake of the enactment of a new law that will allow public corporations to restructure their debts through a bankruptcy like process in local courts.
García Padilla’s push for some form of “enhanced commonwealth” and his strident call to “defeat” statehood may also resonate with independence supporters, whose first status choice has represented a small blip in previous plebiscites.
García Padilla said Wednesday his aim is to hold another status plebiscite by the end of the current political term that runs through 2016. The PDP governing board has signed off on the plan.
The governor’s announcement came more than a year after President Barack Obama presented a $3.77 trillion budget proposal for 2014 that includes $2.5 million for voter education and the first federally sanctioned plebiscite in Puerto Rico on options that would resolve the fundamental question of the island’s future political status. Congress approved the funding in January.
García Padilla has backed off plans to hold a constituent assembly on status next year as Obama pushed for a federally funded plebiscite on the issue.
Obama has acted on the status issue and Congress has approved the funds, he noted.
“In that same spirit we accept this challenge,” the governor said Sunday “Now is the moment to defeat statehood.”
The $2.5 million is to be funneled through the U.S. Department of Justice to the Puerto Rico State Elections Commission. The monies could be used after the attorney general has found a commission plan that includes education materials and ballot options to be consistent with the Constitution and basic laws and policies of the United States.
The commission would have equal representation from each of Puerto Rico’s political parties, with a president appointed by the governor. For a status plebiscite under local law last November, the membership was increased to include representatives of each of status option.
Although the federal law approved by Congress and signed by Obama does not prescribe how the ballot should be structured, it does require the U.S. Department of Justice to ensure that any option on the ballot is compatible with the U.S. Constitution, its laws and its public policy.
The plebiscite would be the first federal sanctioned status vote but would be the second referendum within a four-year period. The previous was held on election day in November 2012.
In the first question of the November 2012 two-part referendum, 54 percent of voters said they were not content with the current commonwealth status.
The second question asked what status was preferred. Of the about 1.3 million voters who made a choice, nearly 800,000 supported statehood, some 437,000 backed sovereign free association and 72,560 chose independence. But nearly 500,000 left that question blank.
The White House has said “the results were clear, the people of Puerto Rico want the issue of status resolved, and a majority chose statehood in the second question.”
“Now is the time for Congress to act and the administration will work with them on that effort so that the people of Puerto Rico can determine their own future,” reads a statement by the White House issued in early December 2012.
The Puerto Rican Independence Party and statehood NPP maintain that the results of the two-step plebiscite represent a clear rejection of the continuation of the current territorial status. Those voting “no” included statehood supporters, as well as advocates of independence and free association.
García Padilla and his PDP argue the ballot was rigged against the current status and that the empty ballots represent a protest against commonwealth’s exclusion from the second question. He had pledged to hold a constituent assembly on the status issue in 2014 if a congressionally binding plebiscite was not held.
A similar appropriation was proposed by then President Bill Clinton in 2000 and enacted into law by the Republican Congress in 2000 for a Puerto Rican status choice in 2001. (It was not spent because the funds lapsed before a plan was developed.)
In a March 2011 report, the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico’s Status found that the island’s development needs were hindered by lack of resolution of the ultimate status question. The issue also raises questions about the appropriate federal policies related to Puerto Rico.
The task force also advised, as it did under President George W. Bush, that Puerto Ricans should vote to determine their aspirations among the possible options for Puerto Rico’s status. It identified the possible options as: commonwealth (under which islands exercise local self-government but are subject to broad congressional governing authority under the Territory Clause of the Constitution, may be treated differently than states in federal laws, and do not have voting representation in the federal government; U.S. statehood; Independence, nationhood in a free association with the U.S. (similar to the arrangements that the U.S. has with the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau in the Pacific).
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