Is the Puerto Rico Status Act perfect? We don’t think so. Many other observers also don’t think it’s perfect. Does that mean it should be scrapped? Do we need a new bill?
No.
We need discussion and debate on the floor of the House and Senate. In that context, our elected representatives can offer amendments and corrections that will make the bill more practical. That’s how Congress works.
Objections to the PRSA
Rep. Bruce Westerman made the following objections to the bill: “[It is] offering Puerto Rico the promise of independence while prescribing actions that should be taken by the newly sovereign nation. It promises the trappings of U.S. citizenship without the obligations or responsibilities of being a part of the United States. I believe it is unconscionable that the federal government would continue federal funding to a new nation that would not pay any taxes to the United States.”
CASA objects that “It leaves unaddressed fundamental questions of language and culture that are of paramount importance, not just to Puerto Ricans, but to members of Congress who have frequently cited the centrality of those issues.”
Rep. Cliff Bentz said, “The bill fails to talk about and address U.S. sovereignty, U.S. elections, government benefits, taxation, immigration, and a myriad of other important issues, all of which need to be addressed. This is not to suggest that Puerto Rico at some point shouldn’t be a state.”
We question the sections on citizenship under independence and free association.
There are certainly things to talk about.
How do bills get talked about?
When a bill is introduced, it goes through a process that all laws must follow. It usually goes to a committee of Congressional representatives who are experts on the subject of the law. The committee will make changes in a process called “mark up.” They will then send the bill back to the House or Senate with their recommendations that it should be passed or not.
Sometimes a bill may die in committee and never make its way back to the floor.
Once the bill is on the floor, the Senate or House will discuss and debate it. Often, members will make amendments — that is, proposed changes. These amendments will be voted on. For example, in committee discussion of the Puerto Rico Status Act in 2022, “Rep. McClintock offered an amendment [which] would have required that the plebiscite offer the option to indicate that the voter would prefer `none of the above’ status options. The amendment was not agreed to by a roll call vote of 14 yeas and 28 nays.” This is the process which takes the bill as introduced to the law as finally passed.
The House and the Senate must each pass any bill that becomes law, but they can end up with two different bills, even when they start out the same.
If the versions of the bill from the House and the Senate are different, the two parts of Congress must work together to harmonize the two before they send it to the president for his or her signature.
A prediction
We think it is very likely that when the Puerto Rico Status Act comes to the floor for debate, there will be amendments regarding the plans for citizenship under independence or free association. These parts of the bill have already been changed since it was first introduced, and there would probably be more changes before it is passed. In 2022, for example, Rep. Tom Tiffany proposed an amendment that would have removed U.S. citizenship from the definition of free association.
We believe that the 10th amendment makes it clear that Congress is not in charge of matters of language and culture, but there might be proposals to amend the bill with these issues in mind anyway. In 2022, for example, Rep. McClintock offered an amendment requiring that “English would be the official language of all federal business and communications and the official language of the State of Puerto Rico. The amendment would have required the State of Puerto Rico to ‘promote English as the official language of the state government, courts, and agencies’ and would have required that English be the language of instruction in all public schools in the state. The amendment was not agreed to by a roll call vote of 14 yeas and 30 nays.”
We would expect amendments of this kind to be voted down, as have all attempts to make an official national language for the United States.
Other amendments proposed at that time included a requirement to have a 2/3 vote for the winning status option, a rule that independence would not be proclaimed if the new nation of Puerto Rico accepted help with its debt from China, and that the provisions about financial support be removed. While all of the amendments were rejected by the committee in 2022, we would expect that similar amendments would arise in a debate about the Puerto Rico Status Act in this Congress, too.
Once these discussion take place, we would have a Puerto Rico Status Bill that has the support not only of members of the various political parties in Puerto Rico, as the current bill has, but also the support of the U.S. Congress. This is the next step toward resolution of Puerto Rico’s political status. Ask your representatives to support action on the Puerto Rico Status Act.
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