51st state?
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Bush plan reignites debate on future of Puerto Rico
Monday, February 27, 2006

By MIGUEL PEREZ
STAFF WRITER

They are Puerto Ricans from Paterson, all born on the Caribbean island, all still very nationalistic. Yet Eli Burgos, Juan Torres and Jose Morales see their homeland's future from vastly different perspectives.

One wants Puerto Rico to maintain its commonwealth relationship with the United States. Another wants to see it become the 51st state. A third longs for an independent nation.

Their differences -- the kind that have divided Puerto Ricans for half a century -- have resurfaced, thanks to a Bush administration bid for new referendums to determine the island's political status.

U.S. citizens since 1917, Puerto Rico's 4 million people don't enjoy all the benefits of citizenship. Although they serve in the U.S. military, they are barred from voting in presidential elections. They pay no federal income taxes, and their voice in Congress is limited to a single, non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives.

In three plebiscites – 1967, 1993 and 1998 – Puerto Ricans have chosen commonwealth slightly over statehood, with independence finishing a distant third.

But this time a White House Task Force on Puerto Rico's Status has proposed a plebiscite with a twist: two rounds of voting to eliminate two of the three options.

In the first round, Puerto Ricans would choose between remaining a commonwealth or moving toward a more permanent status. If they decide they want a permanent solution, a second plebiscite would pose two options: statehood or independence.

Burgos believes the recommendation is slanted toward statehood. Since independence gets little support in the polls, "by eliminating the commonwealth option, you are really going only in one direction," he said.

Torres agrees, although he likes the possibilities: "If we are given a choice only between statehood and independence, statehood would prevail."

Morales also likes it, but only because he says it admits what the U.S. government has long denied: That Puerto Rico is a colony and that the commonwealth arrangement isn't permanent.

In fact, the Bush task force recommends plebiscites periodically, until the Puerto Rican people choose a more permanent status. It has called on Congress to sanction the dual plebiscites this year, or at least hold hearings. An uproar has followed in Puerto Rico.

The pro-commonwealth administration of Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vilᠨas mounted a campaign against the proposal. It has recruited several U.S. legislators, mostly Democrats, including Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, who deemed the report "slanted in favor of statehood." Last week, he and three other senators, two of them Republicans, introduced a bill designed to counteract the proposal.

That measure, the Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act of 2006, calls on Congress to "recognize the right of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico to call a constitutional convention" composed of delegates elected by the Puerto Rican people to define the options for inclusion in a referendum.

"Congress will have the final say on the referendum, but the process should start with the people of Puerto Rico and not in Washington," said co-sponsor Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. The task force recommendations "do not give Puerto Ricans the fair choice they deserve," he said.

The proposal also makes some critics suspicious.

In the past, people generally assumed Puerto Rico would be a blue state. Some commonwealth supporters suspect that has changed.

A State of Puerto Rico would send two senators and six representatives to Capitol Hill. It would get eight Electoral College votes.

Since many Puerto Rican elected officials are now Republicans, it's "a fallacy" to assume the island would send mostly Democrats to Washington, or that Puerto Ricans would vote for a Democratic presidential candidate, said Dennis Gonzalez of Clifton, a mainland-born Puerto Rican who works for the Bush administration.

The task force proposal "is not perfect, it's not going to make everybody happy," said Gonzalez, who supports commonwealth status. "But at least they are trying to establish an ultimate solution."

At a time when Puerto Ricans are dying in disproportionately high numbers in the war in Iraq, he said, it might be a good time to take the debate to Congress.

"If you support statehood, you can say that Puerto Ricans should have the right to vote for president because the president is sending them to war," he said. "And if you support independence, you can ask why we should be fighting for this country when we should be a sovereign nation. It's timely."

E-mail: perez@northjersey.com
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ELI BURGOS

PROFESSION: Business administrator, city of Paterson

FAVORS: Commonwealth

The ideal status for his native Puerto Rico, Burgos says, is the status quo.

Under its commonwealth relationship with the U.S., Puerto Rico has made "remarkable progress," going "from one of the poorest islands in the Caribbean to one of the most prosperous," he says.

"Politically, there is no better status for Puerto Rico than to be a state," Burgos says. Mainland Puerto Ricans and other Latinos would gain tremendously from the additional representation they would have in Congress.

But he believes the island is not yet ready to make that transition. He favors "buying a little more time until there is more stability in the world."

While the Puerto Rican identity eventually would be lost under statehood, Burgos says, under independence Puerto Ricans would lose their American identity.