Puerto Rico self determination act (discussion draft)

Politics
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https://s3.amazonaws.com/static.popvox.com/pages/Puerto-rico-status-discussion-draft

The link is to a discussion draft of legislation. It has NOT been formally introduced in Congress and thus will not appear in the congress.gov system at this time.

Preamble:

To enable the people of Puerto Rico to choose a permanent, nonterritorial, fully self-governing political status for Puerto Rico and to provide for a transition to and the implementation of that permanent, nonterritorial, fully self-governing political status, and for other purposes.

Short title:

This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Puerto Rico Status Act’’.

The bill would require a binding plebiscite be held in Puerto Rico on November 5, 2023.

The choices would be:

  1. Statehood
  2. Independence
  3. Sovereignty in free association with the United States

A majority would be required on any choice.

If none of those options receive a majority, a runoff plebiscite would be held on March 3, 2024, between the two top plurality winners.

The winning option would automatically be implemented without further legislation by Congress.

If Statehood is chosen, Puerto Rico would be admitted by Presidential Proclamation no later than 1 year after formal certification of the results.

If Independence or Free Association is chosen, Puerto Rico would hold a Constitutional Convention to write a national Constitution. Once the Constitution is approved by the voters of Puerto Rico, the President of the United States and the designated Head of State of Puerto Rico would jointly proclaim Puerto Rico’s Independence as a new nation.

I will agree with this bill, though I would have done it slightly differently. I would have put just two main options on the ballot, Statehood or Independence, with a second question that state’s “If Independence is chosen, do you wish Puerto Rico to remain in free association with the United States, yes or no?”

Most of all, I STRONGLY AGREE with NOT having the option to continue in the current status. Although some might wish it, keeping Puerto Rico in continued neo-colonial status is totally unacceptable.

They need to either STAY (Statehood) or GO (Independence). No more waffling in an unacceptable situation.

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The President can’t issue a Presidential Proclamation to create a new state.

Article I, Section 3 clearly says that new states must be admitted by an act of Congress. So this act can create the vote, however it would be up to Congress to pass legislation to admit PR as a State.

WW

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The legislation creating a State is contained in this bill and is self executing if Puerto Rico votes for statehood.

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100% agree.

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They cost more than they’re worth. Cut them loose.

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Or becoming a state.

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Get on with it!

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What do you think will be the result?

IMO, they don’t need to be a state. Not right now. The place is going to need decades of work to fix and we shouldn’t be on the hook for it.

Either way it goes though… it’s going to be a mess due to the island being filled to the gills with US citizens.

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It’s been our territory for decades, but we shouldn’t be “on the hook for fixing it up”?

That’s just ridiculous.

Maybe China will help 'em out. Build a base or something.

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Most of the islands problems are self inflicted.

They’ve always significantly more leeway on how to run their internal affairs than other US territories. We directly controlled Guam and Samoa for decades to a degree that we never subjected the Puerto Ricans to. Plus Puerto Ricans got the benefit of automatic US jus soli citizenship. None of our other colonies ever got that privilege.

Not saying some of our policies towards the island didn’t help. Because some of those policies certainly didn’t help.

But if PR became a state it would be coming into the Union with some severe economic problems and a mountain of debt. Their GDP per capita is terrible. Even my own state of Mississippi, which fights with Arkansas over the title of poorest state in the Union every year, has a GDP per capita rate at over twice that of Puerto Rico.

We would have to rebuild the island’s economy and political form from scratch.

Which is why I support independence for Puerto Rico with a compact of free trade and military defense put in place. I don’t want to abandon them; that would be doing them a disservice. But I don’t want to pay for the economic mistakes their political leadership made over the past 60 years.

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This would be like the Titanic stopping to take on passengers after it hit the iceberg.

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Oh well, we pay the wages of empire. Like it or not, they are our responsibility.

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The empire ended with the return of the Philippines to native rule in 1946. The American imperial experiment ended then.

We are left with unfinished business. Technically Puerto Rico has had the right to declare independence since the 1930s. They never did because they saw the benefits of being an “odd” US territory with special privileges over complete independence. And we were content to do that.

It’s not our responsibility to pay for the entire island’s mistakes when they made most of those mistakes without our direct input.

If they want to become a state in the future, they need to at least get their ■■■■ together to the point where they are equal with Mississippi and Arkansas.

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That’s adorable

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The first American Empire. The traditional empire.

We could argue about a Second Empire. One that focuses on economic and military manipulation versus direct control. We still do that. Mainly in the Middle East and certain parts of Asia.

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I am sure we can at least agree with Saf and the OP: it’s time to end the status quo.

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Trust me I fully agree with Saf on that. The status quo needs to end.

I just support independence with compacts of free trade and military mutual defense (basically meaning we defend them against any aggression since the island will never have any sort of military apparatus).

Some people support statehood.

But the status quo is unacceptable. For both Puerto Rico and the United States.

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My biggest question is that if independence is chosen as the way forward… what happens to US citizenship for people currently residing on the island?

Because as of now they are all US citizens.

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Puerto Rico did not fully cause its own problems. Not by a long shot.

Part of the problem is that the United States has a jack boot firmly planted on Puerto Rico’s neck. And the United States has handed Puerto Rico the shovels needed to dig itself so deep.

First the jack boot. Also known as the Jones Act. If anything has ■■■■■■ up Puerto Rico, it is the Jones Act. It makes shipping to and from the island prohibitively expensive and has done more than anything else to destroy any chance of economic growth on the island.

The secondary jack boot is that the Federal minimum wage applies in full on the island. It is simply too high on Puerto Rico and retards employment. It would be equivalent to raising the minimum wage to $20 an hour on the mainland.

Unemployment and welfare benefits are too lavish on the island, keeping a large percentage of the population perpetually out of the workforce, given that it is more advantageous to suck on the teat than to get a job.

The exemption of Puerto Rican bonds from federal taxation encouraged the island to engage in reckless deficit spending which finally led to the Federal Government being forced to intervene with the PROMESA Board. While Puerto Rico might have dug its own hole, it could not have done so had the Federal Government not handed it the shovel in the form of tax breaks.

There are numerous other instances by which the Federal Government negatively impacts Puerto Rico.

Ultimately, it is the United States, both by its shameful neo-colonialism and its negative treatment of the island (particularly the Jones Act) that bears the responsibility for the shape that Puerto Rico is in. Puerto Rico could not have sunk as far as it has without the complicit maltreatment by the United States.

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That will be difficult to resolve, if they become independent.