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WELCOME TO THE HOME PAGE OF THIS COMMITTEE OF CORRESPONDENCE FOR DEMOCRACY IN PUERTO RICO:
WHAT’S RED HOT…
CLICK HERE FOR LIMITED NATURE OF STATUTORY “AUTONOMY” OF MARIANA ISLANDS AND PUERTO RICO AGAIN CONFIRMED BY CONGRESS AND U.S. FEDERAL COURTS
CLICK HERE FOR COMMONWEALTH AND TERRITORIAL CO-DEPENDENCY
CLICK HERE FOR COMMENTS ON GUANTANAMO DETAINEE RULING BY U.S. SUPREME COURT, AND CRITIQUE OF JUSTICE KENNEDY’S OPINION RELYING ON 1922 CASE OF BALZAC V. PUERTO RICO TO BOLSTER THE RULING, BUT ACTUALLY WEAKENING ITS LEGAL FOUNDATION
CLICK HERE FOR PROFESSOR CLEARY’S COMMENTS ON CURRENT GOVERNOR’S CORRUPTION SCANDAL AND STATUS ISSUE.
CLICK HERE FOR REBUTTAL BY DR. CLEARY OF PROFESSOR REISMAN’S SO-CALLED “YALE STUDY” ON PR STATUS FOR WILLIAM MIRANDA MARIN…
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IN THE SPIRIT OF THE EARLY AMERICAN COMMITTEES OF CORRESPONDENCE, THIS SITE IS DEDICATED TO INFORMED DEMOCRATIC SELF-DETERMINATION FOR PUERTO RICO.
THIS CALL TO ACTION IS GROUNDED IN BOTH HISTORICAL TRUTH AND RECOGNITION THAT CONGRESS AND OUR FELLOW CITIZENS IN
PUERTO RICO FACE NEW REALITIES IN A NEW CENTURY. AS THE YEAR 2007 COMES TO AN END, HERE IS HOW THE PUERTO RICO STATUS ISSUE BEST CAN BE FRAMED:
BOTH THE REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLATFORMS CALL FOR A FEDERALLY SPONSORED SELF-DETERMINATION PROCESS TO RESOLVE THE POLITICAL STATUS OF PUERTO RICO.
WHY ARE A SMALL GROUP OF REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS TRYING TO SABOTAGE LEGISLATION NOW IN CONGRESS TO ALLOW A DEMOCRATIC VOTE ON THE STATUS CHOICES AVAILABLE TO PUERTO RICO UNDER THE U.S. CONSTITUTION?
WHY ARE LOBBYISTS FOR CORPORATIONS ENJOYING FEDERAL TAX SHELTERS IN PUERTO RICO COACHING AN ODDLY ALIGNED ARRAY OF MEMBERS AND STAFF IN CONGRESS TO OPPOSE THEIR OWN PARTY PLATFORMS ON SELF-DETERMINATION FOR PUERTO RICO?
Puerto Rico and the National Party Platforms:
4 million U.S. citizens live under the stars and stripes and pursue the American Dream in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. That means 25 states of the union have populations smaller than the number of our fellow American citizens living in Puerto Rico.
Because our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico work to build their families, communities and businesses just like people throughout America, the national Republican Party and the Democratic Party hold presidential primaries in Puerto Rico, and the local GOP and Democrat parties fully participate in the national parties.
Puerto Rico sends full delegations representing the population of the territory to the national party conventions, and these delegations have voting power in the nominating process equal to that of their fellow Americans from the states.
Because Puerto Rico is a socially conservative community with strong religious and family traditions, the local Republican Party sends a solidly conservative delegation to GOP conventions. In Puerto Rico more than half the mayors are Republican, and the current U.S. Congressman from Puerto Rico, elected at-large as the non-voting envoy for 4 million U.S. citizens in the territory, is also a Republican.
But the Democratic Party remains strong and fully able to win elections as well. Puerto Rico was integrated into American political culture during the era of FDR, when the Democrats also controlled Congress. The territory received benefits from the expansion of federal programs under the New Deal, and later the Great Society policies of LBJ.
So many Puerto Ricans who moved to New York after citizenship was conferred on Puerto Rico by Congress in 1917 registered as Democrats. Even though a new wave of young educated Puerto Ricans in the territory and the mainland trends Republican, including a large Puerto Rican voting bloc in Florida, the local Democrat Party in Puerto Rico is still fully competitive, and also fully participates in the National Democratic Party.
Significantly, Puerto Ricans participate as American citizens with equal standing in the national party political process, so their fellow American citizens embrace them as equals and share their legitimate aspirations.
The result based on equality in the process is that both the GOP and Democratic national party platforms unequivocally support a federally sponsored self-determination process, based on status options recognized under federal law.
Both national party platforms also support full equality and integration of Puerto Rico as a state of the union, if that is what the voters of the territory freely choose.
BOTH THE GOP AND DNC PLATFORM PROVISIONS ON PUERTO RICO STATUS ARE PRESENTED AND DISCUSSED BELOW, BUT AFTER THE ISSUES ARE FRAMED BY THE FOLLOWING BACKGROUND MATERIAL ON FEDERAL TERRITORIAL PRACTICES AND LOCAL STATUS POLITICS IN PUERTO RICO.
Puerto Rico under Federal Territorial Law and Policy:
In contrast to acceptance of their legitimate aspirations by the national political parties in which they fully participate, the results for Puerto Ricans are very different and less favorable in the federal legal and political process. This is not hard to understand, since U.S. citizens in the territory are denied equal civil rights and or standing under federal law, do not have voting rights in presidential elections, and are without voting representation in Congress.
Under federal law the U.S. citiznes of Puerto Rico receive many federal benefits, but remain in the same legal and political status as non-citizens in the Philippines during territorial rule by Congress more than a century ago. Puerto Rico remains the only territory in U.S. history to be granted U.S. citizenship, but not the right of self-determination leading to fully democratic self-government at the national level, through statehood or independence.
Specifically, Puerto Rico is the only territory in U.S. history to be ruled under the territorial powers of Congress for nine decades, without being afforded a right under federal law to seek, through self-determination, a path to full and equal rights and duties of a national citizenship, as guaranteed to states under the U.S. Constitution, or under the constitution of a sovereign Puerto Rico.
Because residents of Puerto Rico are disenfranchised, they have no means of giving or withholding consent to the form of government and laws under which they live. Anti-statehood and anti-independence lobbyists for the local commonwealth party in Puerto Rico, and the local as well as mainland corporate interests it serves, propose greater autonomy as a solution to disenfranchisement of Americans in Puerto Rico.
The interpretations of federal law concocted by the intelligentsia of the local commonwealth party, to support the idea of autonomy in lieu of equality, finally have been decisively discredited in the record before the U.S. Congress and the federal courts. In particular, Congress has rejected the doctrine of “New Commonwealth” espoused by the pro-commonwealth party.
Although often reinvented with new gimmicks to distract attention from its obvious flaws, the core elements of the “New Commonwealth” status formula in the commonwealth party platform include a local power of nullification over application of federal law, as well as a system of dual sovereignty and nationality based on “first allegiance” to Puerto Rico. At the same time the new commonwealth would conduct its own foreign policy and international trade relations, but U.S. citizenship, full federal programs and benefits, and $15 billion in current annual federal subsidies of the economically under-performing “commonwealth” regime would continue.
That lopsided status doctrine is the commonwealth party’s implausible political cover story for its true mission as a party, which is to preserve federal and local tax haven benefits for big corporations in the territory for as long as possible. The legal and political reality is that statehood or nationhood are the constitutional and historical norms for achieving a fully integrated economic model, a fully democratic and self-governing status, and equal rights at the national level defined and secured constitutionally.
This is because political and economic policy in a territory, as well as the powers of local government, are defined by federal statute, and as such are not permanent constitutional arrangements. Statutory schemes to enhance local territorial self-government, including the “commonwealth” system of local government under a territorial constitution, are temporary rather than permanent measures adopted under the federal authority.
Such federal statutory measures for local territorial government do not bind Congress, because Congress can not cede powers reserved to it, or thereby vest such powers in a territory or a local government created by federal territorial law. Because Congress retains all residual powers, and no powers can be reserved to the territory, federal law remains supreme.
Congress simply does not have the power to create by statute a zone of local sovereignty beyond the reach of federal law. Thus, local law must always conform to federal law, and federal law can be changed by Congress, as long territory status continues.
Consequently, the only way to sustain majority rule and consent of the governed in Puerto Rico on the status question is for Congress to sponsor a self-determination process. To be legally meaningful and politically realistic, the voters in such a self-determination process must be allowed to choose among options consistent with governing federal law.
Those options can include the current temporary territory status (with whatever form of local self-government Congress provides by statute), statehood, independence, or sovereign nationhood with a treaty of “free association”.
Congress and the Politics of Self-Determination for Puerto Rico:
Both Houses of the U.S. Congress currently are considering legislation with strong bipartisan sponsorship to provide for a federally recognized democratic self-determination process to resolve the political status of 4 million U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico.
After decades of locally sponsored status votes that have been confusing and inconclusive, the leadership of Congressional committees with jurisdiction over territorial policy are supporting legislation to ensure consent of the governed in Puerto Rico, to both the form of government and laws under which the residents of the territory live.
A federal policy on status resolution for Puerto Rico is necessary because local political measures relating to political status have produced a failed self-determination process that is now in a state of arrest. Contrary to the Constitution of theCommonwealth of Puerto Rico, status alternatives presented on locally formulated plebiscite ballots have not been limited to options compatible with federal law.
Instead, the local Commonwealth Party in Puerto Rico has been successful demanding, as a condition of its support for self-determination, that local status votes not be limited to the historical and constitutionally defined options of continued territorial status, statehood, or nationhood (the latter including either full independence or sovereign nationhood with a treaty of “free association”). Instead of supporting an orderly transition to one the existing non-territorial options for a fully self-governing status with equal rights and duties of citizenship at the national level, i.e. statehood or nationhood, the local Commonwealth Party platform demands that Congress to create a new status that has never existed or been recognized under the U.S. Constitution.
As noted laready, the so-called “New Commonwealth” status proposed in the local Commonwealth Party platform would combine an unnatural hybrid with features of both statehood and sovereign nationhood. This “nation-within-a-nation” status proposal has been rejected by Congress for 50 years, and has not even been approved by a majority in local status votes. Last appearing on a plebiscite ballot in 1993, the “New Commonwealth” option got 48% of the vote, a narrow plurality over 46% for statehood, but still short of a majority.
Still, the commonwealth party indoctrinates its followers that “New Commonwealth” would be within reach if only supporters of statehood and independence would join the quest for it. Of course, as long as the goal of that quest remains unrealized, the present territory status will continue, with the current commonwealth system of self-government limited to local affairs not governed by federal laws, made applicable to Puerto Rico without the consent of the governed.
Mainland and local corporate and political interests, and their army of lobbyists, keep the commonwealth party going because they all prosper economically and thrive politically under the current regime. They do not admit it, but they clearly prefer the undemocratic status quo to statehood, independence or free association.
It was the same with the elites of the American colonial establishment in the Philippines, whose empire passed with the transition to independence. The pineapple and sugar barons in Hawaii and the mining and fishing kingpins in Alaska also resisted when it came time to end their political and economic domination based on territorial status, and play by the same rules as the rest of the nation under statehood.
But the commonwealth party elites in Puerto Rico have been a little more clever than their counterparts in 33 other territories, each of which made the transition to statehood, and in one case independence, the old fashioned way. Instead of playing by the rules of American federalism or the community of nations for status resolution through statehood or nationhood, the commonwealth party has convinced their party faithful that difficult choices can be avoided, simply by demanding the primary benefits, but not the full burdens, of both statehood and nationhood.
Since that will never happen, as long as it can be made to appear plausible to commonwealth party followers, it gives the commonwealth party an agenda for its own survival as a political party, created for the sole purpose of presiding over the current commonwealth. Thus, instead of being a problem of eventual accountability for the commonwealth party elites, the unattainable nature of “New Commonwealth” is what makes it so perfect!
For it means the commonwealth regime can survive indefinitely, and the commonwealth party with it, as long as Congress does not give the voters the real choices. That is why the commonwealth party and its lobbying army opposes a federally sponsored status process based on options compatible with federal law, and demands that any self-determination process under federal or local law must include the “New Commonwealth” option as defined in the party platform.
As long as the status process always includes an option that does not exist, it will be possible to prevent majority rule based on a choice between the options that do exist. Thus, like a cult waiting for something that will never happen, voters indoctrinated by the commonwealth party will remain devotees of “New Commonwealth” as an aspirational ideological paradigm.
Clearly, the commonwealth party exists to govern Puerto Rico as something other than a state or a nation. While the commonwealth could become a state or a nation and still call itself a commonwealth, the commonwealth party can not afford to admit that those are the only real options for full democratic self-government. Since the commonwealth party can never deliver full democratic self-government, it seeks above all to avoid a fair fight, a level playing field, or whatever other metaphor for informed self-determination one prefers.
Playing by the same rules as the states of the union, or as real sovereign nations, would put the viability of the commonwealth party in doubt. That is why the commonwealth party has defined itself as the party offering “the best of both worlds”, a commonwealth status with the primary benefits of both statehood and independence, but the full burdens or neither.
In other words, to avoid competing in a political process based on options that do exist, the commonwealth party holds out to its followers an option that does not exist. Not because it will ever be adopted, but as a political gimmick to prevent change and preserve the status quo.
One could just shrug and say that the 4 million U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico who are denied democratic participation in their national government deserve what they are getting if they fall for the commonwealth party hoax. That might be very true if Congress had not failed during 108 years of U.S. rule to ever sponsor a status vote based on options available to Puerto Rico under the U.S. Constitution.
To avoid risking defeat in a legitimate, informed act of self-determination sponsored by Congress, the Commonwealth Party and its stable of Republican and Democrat lobbyists spare no expense to kill the idea of a federally sponsored referendum on status, especially if Congress limits the options to those recognized as compatible with federal law.
Instead, the Commonwealth Party wants Congress to ignore 15 years of its own oversight hearings and deliberations that have produced a strong record of fact and law demonstrating the need for a federal policy on status. That record demands that Congress exercise its constitutional authority to define a status resolution policy to restore government by consent, either to continue the current status defined by federal law as territorial, or to make possible a non-territorial status in the future, with fully equal rights and duties of citizenship at the national as well as local level.
To obstruct responsible action by Congress, the Commonwealth Party proposes that Congress delegate authority over the status issue back to the local political process that has failed to produce legitimate self-determination practices in the territory for five decades. Specifically, the Commonwealth Party now demands that any proposal on status be formulated by a local constitutional convention that is not restricted to options compatible with either the local or federal constitution. Bipartisan support is growing in Congress for a federally sponsored status resolution process to end disenfranchisement at the national level for 4 million U.S. citizens residing in
Puerto Rico. Yet, some Republican and Democratic Members of Congress, members of their personal staff, as well as Congressional Committee staff, often ignore the platforms of their own parties, and fail to support a federally sponsored status resolution process in Puerto Rico.
PARTY PLATFORM PROVISIONS ON STATUS RESOLUTION
As noted above, the only democratic participation Americans in Puerto Rico have in our national political process, including through voting representation, is in the national political party presidential nominating and platform conventions. Thus, in one sense the GOP and DNC platforms best represent the will of America regarding Puerto Rico status, and do so much better than federal government policies promulgated by Congress without democratic representation and equal participation by Puerto Rico.
Why do some in Congress align themselves against legitimate self-determination and government by consent through a federally sponsored status resolution policy? The following discussion of both the GOP and DNC platforms explores this question, starting with excerpts from and commentary about the record of GOP policy discourse on Puerto Rico’s status, as embodied in the 2004 GOP Platform.
For decades the GOP Platform has supported self-determination and embraced the option of statehood for Puerto Rico. In the 2004 platform section entitled “Americans in the Territories” the policy of the Republican Party regarding the status of
Puerto Rico is unequivocal:
· “We support the right of the United States citizens of Puerto Rico to be admitted to the Union as a fully sovereign state after they freely so determine.”
· “We recognize that Congress has the final authority to define the constitutionally valid options for Puerto Rico to achieve a permanent non-territorial status with government by consent and full enfranchisement.”
· “As long as Puerto Rico is not a state, however, the will of its people regarding their political status should be ascertained by means of a general right of referendum or specific referenda sponsored by the United States Government.”
These three policy statements define the political and legal procedures to address
Puerto Rico’s unique political status problem in accordance with historical and constitutional norms.
Specifically, it is culturally as well as historically significant that the platform of the national party of the President and the majority in Congress at that time stated that Puerto Rico is sufficiently integrated with the rest of our nation, socially, politically and economically, that its U.S. citizen population has earned the right to statehood, if that is the ultimate status they freely determine and choose.
The platform also states truthfully, to the U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico and the world, that under the current status Puerto Rico remains in a territorial condition, in which according to the federal constitution Congress is the repository of supreme sovereignty in Puerto Rico, with final authority to determine the legally valid status options available to Puerto Rico.
However, the same statement also commits the national party to an ultimate status that is “non-territorial”. The term “non-territorial” is then defined in the same sentence, as one in which the people are “enfranchised” with full and equal voting rights in the national law-making process, so that the principle of government by the consent of the governed is fully implemented at the national as well as local level.
Finally, the GOP platform recognizes that the U.S. citizens of Puerto Rico have not yet been afforded the opportunity for an informed act of self-determination on political status based on legally valid options recognized by federal law. Thus, the policy adopted in the platform calls for federal sponsorship of a referendum in which those eligible to vote under the laws of Puerto Rico can freely determine and express their wishes as to political status options that the President and Congress accept as legally valid.
2004 Democratic Party Platform:
It is also historically significant that the 2004 GOP Platform reflects Republican leadership that seeks a bipartisan policy convergence on Puerto Rico based on the principles of the U.S. Constitution and political realism.
This is demonstrated by the fact that the National Democratic Party 2004 Platform language on Puerto Rico status resolution is less specific but nearly identical to the GOP platform language reviewed above. Specifically, the Democratic Party Platform section on “Building Stronger Communities” states that:
· “We believe that four million disenfranchised American citizens residing in
Puerto Rico have the right to the permanent and fully democratic status of their choice.”· “The White House and Congress will clarify the realistic status options for Puerto Rico and enable Puerto Ricans to choose among them.”
The preceding discussion of GOP and DNC policy deliberations makes us wonder why some Republican members of Congress align themselves with the most far left Democrats and the left wing Commonwealth Party in Puerto Rico to oppose a federally sponsored status resolution process for Puerto Rico?
Commonwealth Party leaders condemn the U.S. War on Terrorism, call for larger federal subsidies, oppose English as an official language in Puerto Rico, and advocate a Quebec-like separatist regime in the commonwealth. Yet, these same leftist Commonwealth Party leaders also pay millions to conservative Republican lobbyists to find Members of Congress who will become stalking horses on the right to limit self-determination in Puerto Rico to local status votes, based on locally proposed options.
The primary goal of the Commonwealth Party is to prevent Congress from limiting status options in a referendum to those recognized under federal law. The reason the Commonwealth Party opposes a federally sponsored status vote based on options compatible with federal law is that its platform calls for a status that is not compatible with or possible under federal law.
What the Commonwealth Party fears most is a federally sponsored vote based on real options that exist under the U.S. Constitution. That could result in a majority vote on a real status option, and end minority rule.
The only tactic that has worked for the commonwealth party has been inclusion of an impossible “Commonwealth” option which gets enough votes to prevent any option from getting a majority of votes cast. That is what has happened in past local votes, which have produced confusing and inconclusive results.
That is why the party demands that any status vote be based on status options proposed at the local level. Since Congress and the federal courts have rejected the proposal for “New Commonwealth” in the party platform as unconstitutional and impossible, its inclusion obstructs progress toward options that are possible, including statehood, real nationhood or continued territory status.
By using Republican as well as Democrat lobbyists to oppose their own party platforms, and effectively block federal sponsorship of a status vote based on real options, the Commonwealth Party and its allies in Congress are effectively denying informed self-determination to the U.S. citizens of Puerto Rico.
They also openly exploit nativist anti-Hispanic sentiment by linking self-determination for 4 million U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico to the issue of English as a national language mandated by federal law, and even the problem of illegal immigration. Ignoring nine decades of U.S. citizenship in Puerto Rico, the fact that Puerto Rico is a socially conservative community within the American political family for 108 years, as well as the service and sacrifice of Americans from Puerto Rico in every war of the last century (at a higher per capita rate than all but 5 states), the Commonwealth Party and its Republican lobbyists seek to arouse anti-Hispanic feelings against our patriotic fellow Americans in our nation’s last large and heavily populated territory.
Why do far left Commonwealth Party leaders pay millions to conservative Republican lobbyists? Well, it is more complicated than you might think, because some of the same lobbyists that work for the Commonwealth Party also work for the pharmaceutical companies and other mainland corporations that have written off tens of billions in federal taxes, by exploiting corporate welfare tax policies that Congress ended on a bipartisan basis?
Why do the Commonwealth Party lobbyists continue to seek reinstatement of tax shelter rip-offs under commonwealth, and seek to prevent permanent closure of tax shelter schemes through federal sponsored self-determination to resolve the status of Puerto Rico? Why do some Republicans oppose the findings and recommendations in the Report by the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico Status?
The following discussion of these issues was provided by local conservative Republicans in
Puerto Rico to answer some of these questions.
The Republican Party of Puerto Rico concurs fully with the findings and recommendations of the Report of the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico’s Status. The local GOP also supports legislation introduced in the Congress to implement the recommendations of the White House report.
Thus, both the GOP is on record in support of measures consistent with the findings and recommendations of the White House report as the first step in the journey of 4 million U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico from territorial dependency and restricted citizenship rights to full democracy and prosperity.
The President’s Task Force Report:
In accordance with Executive Order 13183, as amended on December 3, 2003, the members of the Task Force engaged in research and consultations involving a broad spectrum of expertise and opinion, in order to prepare and submit a report to the President in 2005 on the legally valid political status alternatives available to the U.S. and Puerto Rico to achieve status resolution. In addition to other on-going efforts to prepare this report, on May 24, 2004, the Co-Chairmen of the Task Force visited Puerto Rico to discuss the status resolution process with leaders of the local government, local political parties, non-governmental organizations and others.
The final report was presented to the President on December 22, 2006. The Task Force report’s historical analysis and findings are consistent with the Republican Party’s recognition that this nation was born when the aspirations of the people for consent of the governed to the law of the land made continued colonial status intolerable.
Accordingly, under the federal constitution adopted in 1789, an anti-colonial and anti-imperial tradition began that has included incorporation of territories into the union to redeem the promise of equality and consent of the governed through admission to statehood. With the emergence of the United States as a world power and extension of American sovereignty to noncontiguous territories classified as unincorporated, both separate sovereign nationhood outside the United States constitutional system and incorporation into the union leading to statehood have remained legally valid territorial status resolution options.
The United States has recognized the principle of democratic self-determination as a part of the status resolution process for all territories. The principle of government by consent of the citizens has been implemented in theCommonwealth of Puerto Rico under a locally adopted constitution as to local matters not otherwise governed by federal law.
The Task Force report recognizes that United States citizens of the territory properly should have access to a democratic status resolution process through which consent of the governed can be achieved as to national law as well. Specifically, there should be a mechanism recognized under both federal and local law through which the United States citizens of Puerto Rico can express their wishes with respect to continuation of the current status, as well as status options through which equal enfranchisement and consent of the governed can be fully implemented.
With these anti-colonial and anti-imperialist American principles in mind, the Task Force undertook comprehensive consultations and on-going research required to prepare and submit its report to the President. All political parties, representatives of local government and non-government organizations and interested individuals were given full access to the Task Force.
Bipartisan status resolution policy:
The White House report represents a bipartisan series of policy initiatives that include the Bush Memo of November 30, 1992, and Executive Order 13183, signed by President Clinton on December 23, 2000. These bipartisan efforts have been consistent with recent Republican and Democratic Party platforms.
For example, the Republican Party Platform adopted at the historic 2004 GOP Convention in New York sets forth clear and compelling principles for resolving the political status of
Puerto Rico. As the 4 million United States citizens of Puerto Rico act democratically to advance status resolution through the local constitutional process, the 2004 GOP Platform provides a road map for both territorial and federal policy measures to address
Puerto Rico’s status.
First, the GOP Platform recognizes that each of the five U.S. unincorporated territories must follow its own path in relations with the federal government. Each territory faces unique social, political and economic development challenges and opportunities, and historically Congress and the President have addressed the status of each territory as it became ready for transition to a permanent status.
The 2004 Democratic Platform is nearly identical to the GOP Platform. Where the GOP calls for “full enfranchisement” through equal voting rights, the Democratic Party platform calls for an end to denial of equal voting rights through the current “disenfranchisement” of U.S. citizens under commonwealth.
Where the GOP platform recognizes the need for Congress and the President to define the legally valid options and sponsor a referendum, the Democratic Party platform calls for the White House and the President to “clarify” the “realistic options” and “enable” a vote between them.
The true meaning of these two national party platforms is the same. This represents bipartisan support for the principle that status resolution requires an informed act of self-determined recognized by the federal government, based on options that are non-territorial, defined to mean full enfranchisement at the national and not just the local level of government.
Any locally adopted legislation to advance the status resolution process should fully take into account the clearly expressed principles of the GOP 2004 Platform, confirmed in a nearly identical but less explicitly defined policy statement in the 2004 Democratic Party Platform.
Accordingly, the Republican Party of Puerto Rico supports federal and local legislation that satisfies the following criteria:
· Local law and policy on status must unite Puerto Rico in supporting the principle that status resolution must be based on a non-territorial status as recognized under federal as well as local law and policy.
· Local status resolution procedures and options must not divide the voters in Puerto Rico on party lines, based on options that are not recognized at the federal as well as local level to be legally valid or politically realistic, as called for in both national party platforms.
· Puerto Rico status law must recognize that the current status is defined by federal law, not the local constitution which was adopted in 1952 without a choice of permanent or non-territorial status options, so that any status solution must be the result of a process recognized and ultimately approved by changes to federal rather than operation of local law alone.
· The best status process is joint local and federal measures that are coordinated to make possible a majority vote for a non-territorial solution.
The process must not mislead the public to believe that a local status assembly created under local law can substitute for the duly-constituted Legislative Assembly for purposes of coordinating status resolution procedures with the federal government.
· The public must not be misled to believe a convention called under Article VII of the local constitution can properly address issues of federal law governing the status of Puerto Rico that are outside the scope of amendments to the local constitution. Article VII does not authorize such a local convention on status, and the attempt to call one would be unconstitutional, unless the authorization complied with Article VII, including the requirement for a majority vote in favor of the convention. Any proposals by the convention for changes to the local constitution or federal law defining status must be compatible with the U.S. Constitution and applicable federal law.