A Quote by Dick Thornburgh
Internal self-government under a local constitution was authorized by Congress and approved by the residents in 1952, but federal law is supreme in Puerto Rico and residents do not have voting representation in the Congress.
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After four centuries of Spanish rule, Puerto Rico was ceded to the United States in 1898. Residents were granted U.S. citizenship in 1917, and the federal government has allowed Puerto Rico to exercise authority over its local affairs in a manner similar to the 50 states.
If Congress does its job in this regard, the residents of Puerto Rico will be empowered to act in their own self-interest and express their future political status aspirations accordingly.
The government of Puerto Rico has every right to hold a plebiscite, to consult the people of Puerto Rico regarding their wishes. But the truth is that for a change in the status of Puerto Rico to happen, you need both Congress and Puerto Rico agreeing to it.
If U.S. national sovereignty continues, it is only as a state that Puerto Rico will have permanent 10th Amendment powers over its non-federal affairs, as well as voting power in Congress.
I am a senior Democratic Member of Congress whose parents were born in Puerto Rico and for whom Puerto Rico self-determination has been - and remains - a central issue of my congressional career.
Apparently tired of waiting for clear direction from Congress, the people of Puerto Rico have used the tools provided by their own local constitution to schedule a vote for Dec. 13 on the status of the island.
The commitment to international agreements is embodied, it's found in the U.S. Constitution. Article Six of the U.S. Constitution provides that treaties of the United States are part of the supreme law of the land along with the constitution itself and laws passed by Congress. Well, the US government certainly has not been acting in recent years as if treaties were part of the supreme law of the land.
However, the sovereignty of the states is constitutionally defined and recognized, while the powers of the local government in Puerto Rico are defined by, and subject to alteration under, federal statutory law.
My job in Congress is to identify projects with federal or some other public component and then to push developers to provide employment opportunities to neighborhood residents.
The one key difference is that Puerto Rico is a colonial territory. We don't have representation. We have a difficult time getting funding from the federal government. This is critical component that we need to change.
To suggest that immigration is the exclusive domain of the federal government, disallowing partnerships with local law enforcement, defies the will of Congress, not to mention reality. Numerous local jurisdictions have laws on the books dealing with immigration in a variety of ways.
I do feel we can create more jobs and opportunities for Jersey City residents, but in the spirit of free enterprise, I do not think it is right to force companies to hire a fixed percentage of local residents.
The law, in this country, is dead. The Supreme Court doesn't follow the Constitution, Congress doesn't follow the Constitution. The President doesn't even want to follow the Constitution. And yet we're the ones called radical.
Parts of the Voting Rights Act are due to expire next year if Congress doesn't extend them, including the section that guarantees that voting rights will be protected by the federal government.
The citizens of Puerto Rico pay taxes with no representation every day, because Puerto Rico is not a state. And the rules only became more confusing the more I looked into them during my time there.
They [ the government of Puerto Rico] are asking to be given the right to declare bankruptcy, which I think should be an option, as a last resort, if there is no other resource. But there also need to be measures, changes within the government of Puerto Rico, in the ways that the island's funds are administered, not just to deal with this budget issue, but also to have, to attract the economic growth that is necessary for Puerto Rico to begin to grow economically. They are losing population, and they are losing economically.
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