On November 6, 2012, the residents of Puerto Rico went to the
polls to vote on both island-wide general elections and a local
plebiscite on the territorial status of Puerto Rico. This election has
generated a heated debate regarding the outcome and implications of the
plebiscite vote. Central to this debate are three questions, namely: In
what context was this plebiscite held? What was the actual outcome of
the vote? And what are the implications of this plebiscite? This entry
addresses the first question by providing an overview of the political
context surrounding this important vote. Additional posts providing
responses to the next two questions will be posted in a short series on
this topic.
Contextualizing the 2012 Plebiscite
Advocates and critics alike invoke two arguments to contextualize the
2012 plebiscite. Members of the conservative and pro-statehood
Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP)
(New Progressive Party) argue that the plebiscite granted the Puerto
Rican electorate a democratic opportunity to rectify more than a century
of colonial subordination. These pro-statehood advocates argue that the
United States has governed Puerto Rico as a “colony” since 1898 and the
2012 plebiscite is an effort to rectify a century-old injustice. This
plebiscite is a mere expression of the will of United States (U.S.)
citizens residing in Puerto Rico who demand equal political and economic
treatment. Critics across the ideological spectrum, including members
of the autonomist
Partido Popular Democratico (PPD) (Popular
Democratic Party), generally counter that the plebiscite was a mere
political ploy to mobilize the Puerto Rican electorate to vote on a
straight-ticket for the pro-statehood candidates.
To understand the current debate regarding the plebiscite vote it is
helpful to review the historical arguments from both sides of the issue.
The United States annexed Puerto Rico following the 1898
Spanish-American War and invented a new territorial status to rule the
island without binding Congress to grant Puerto Rico statehood or to
prevailing constitutional precedents. The U.S. military occupied Puerto
Rico July 1898 and soon after, following the cessation of hostilities,
established a two-year military dictatorship tasked with governing the
island and developing colonial institutions. Scholars agree that
Brigadier George Davis, the last military governor of the island,
established the key public institutions modeled after the British notion
of colonial “dominion.”
Modeled after the General Davis’ proposal, in 1900 Congress enacted
the Foraker Act providing a civil or territorial government for the
island. The Foraker Act created a new territorial status and a
corresponding government. The Third Article established that the United
States could selectively govern Puerto Rico as a foreign country for
trade purposes or more specifically for the collection of taxes, duties,
and other tariffs on merchandize trafficked between the island and the
mainland. Unlike prior organic or territorial legislation, the Foraker
Act did not extend the bill of rights to the island or provide for the
collective naturalization of the residents of the Puerto Rico. Within a
year the Supreme Court began to affirm the Foraker Act and the ensuing
territorial status in a series of rulings known as the
Insular Cases of 1901.
Since then the U.S. has ruled Puerto Rico as an unincorporated
territory enabling the Federal government to selectively rule the island
as a foreign country in a domestic or constitutional sense.
In addition, the Foraker Act established the basic government
institutions for Puerto Rico, some of which endure to the present. The
Foraker Act granted the President a plenary power to appoint a local
government and an Executive Committee tantamount to a second branch of
Congress. Puerto Rican voters were allowed to elect representatives to a
lower House of Delegates or Congress. The Act also continued maintained
the Federal district court created by General Davis and subsequently
integrated this bench to the 1
st Circuit Court of Appeals.
Moreover, although the Foraker Act created the office of the Resident
Commissioner, this official would not gain access to Congress until
1902. Today the Puerto Rican Resident Commissioner is elected to a
four-year term to the House of Representatives, and depending on the
Congress, s/he may vote in congressional committees, but is generally
barred from voting in the floor of the House.
Since then, Congress amended the Foraker Act on several occasions
without changing the territorial status of Puerto Rico. In 1917 Congress
enacted the Jones Act extending a bill of rights to Puerto Rico,
providing for the collective naturalization of the island’s residents,
and creating a popularly elected Senate. In 1947, Congress enacted
legislation enabling the residents of Puerto Rico to elect a local
governor. More importantly, in 1952 Congress approved a tempered Puerto
Rican constitution granting administrative control over local affairs to
a popularly elected government described as the
Estado Libre Asociado (ELA) (loosely
translated as Commonwealth). The remaining provisions of the Foraker
Act not amended by prior legislation were essentially integrated into
the 1950 Puerto Rican Federal Relations Act, the law regulating the
relationship between the island and the Federal government. To this
extent, advocates of the results of the 2012 status plebiscite argue
that the United States has governed Puerto Rico as an unincorporated
territory since 1898 and it is time to resolve the anomalous territorial
status of the island, a status that subordinates U.S. citizens residing
in Puerto Rico to a separate and unequal status within the United
States polity.
The Partisan Context of the Plebiscite
In Puerto Rico, critics of the pro-statehood interpretation argue
that the 2012 plebiscite was a mere partisan effort to draw reluctant
voters to the polls in order to enlist a straight-ticket vote for
PNP candidates. More specifically, they argue that during the past four years the
PNP’s authoritarian
rule has been riddled with corruption and failed public policies (crime
and austerity measures), and that Governor Luis G. Fortuño could only
win a second term in office by combining the general elections with the
plebiscite in order to promote a pro-statehood straight-ticket voting.
Critics further note that the
PNP’s super-majority control of the legislature facilitated the enactment of the 2012 plebiscitary law.
While it is beyond the scope of this entry to disentangle the complex
history of Puerto Rican political parties, suffice it to say that
following the 1898 annexation local political parties generally
gravitated towards three status options, namely autonomy, statehood, and
independence. Spanish and Creole elites advocating for autonomy
typically argued that Puerto Rico was too small to survive without the
assistance of a bigger nation and argued for a permanent self-governing
territorial status. Advocates of statehood typically invoked equal
membership within the U.S. polity and the benefits of statehood. It is
important to note that pre-1952 pro-statehood parties (and their
splinters) spanned an ideological gamut including populist and elite
conservatives, liberal progressives, and even socialists who saw the
benefits of alliances with mainland labor unions. Like pro-statehood
parties, the pro-independence parties included 19
th century
separatists, nationalists, splinter parties from the statehood and
autonomic parties, socialists, and other pro-independence parties.
Following the enactment of the 1952 Commonwealth Constitution, the
Puerto Rican political landscape began to gravitate towards a two-party
system that typically split the majority of votes in both local
elections and status plebiscites. Founded in 1938, the pro-Commonwealth
Partido Popular Democratico
advocates for territorial autonomy. However, advocates of territorial
autonomy have argued for a range of relationships with the United States
including an amended continuation of the Commonwealth status under the
purview of Congress as well as enhanced forms of autonomy modeled after
the Micronesian Compact of Free Association and governed by treaties
under the purview of the President. Alternatively, founded in 1968, the
Partido Nuevo Progresista advocates for statehood.
Notwithstanding the electoral dominance of the latter parties a range
of smaller parties continue to struggle for about 6% of the general
electoral vote. As of the time of this writing, it is possible to
identify at least four alternative political parties embracing three
distinct status options. Despite its poor electoral performance, the
Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño (PIP) (Puerto
Rican Independence Party) continues to garner between 2-3% of the
electoral vote and advocates for a transitional independence from the
United States. The
Movimiento Unión Soberanista (MUS) (Movement for a Sovereign Union), a splinter party from the
PPD, advocates for a Sovereign Free Associated State or a variant of the enhanced Commonwealth status. Two additional parties, the
Partido del Pueblo Trabajador (PPT) (Puerto Rican Workers Party) and the
Partido Puertorriqueños por Puerto Rico (PPR) (Puerto
Ricans for Puerto Rico Party) have adopted a neutral stance on the
status question while promoting social justice agendas in the island.
As previously noted, critics argue that the 2012 plebiscite was a mere instrument to mobilize electoral support for the
PNP in order to counter the effects of the party’s unpopular political agenda and failed signature public policies. The
PNP won
an absolute majority in the 2008 general elections and soon after began
to dismantle public and civil society sources of opposition. The
government put forward a plan to pack the Supreme Court with
pro-statehood judges and sought to redistrict the island’s congressional
districts in order to reduce the number of legislative seats, a move
that would have likely resulted in the permanent creation of a majority
of
PNP districts in the island. The government also sought to
dismantle the University of Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican Bar
Association, two traditional hotbeds of civil society. Simultaneously,
the
PNP’s signature public policies failed. Austerity measures
resulting in the massive firing of public employees (by some accounts
upwards of 30,000) and the transfer of public resources to the
pro-statehood friendly private sector exacerbated the local depression
and failed to improve the economy. Governor Fortuño’s order-maintenance
and “broken-windows” policies failed to reduce public violence and four
years after his election crime is out of control in Puerto Rico.
Finally, widespread clientelism, corruption, and public scandals
threatened to discourage voters from either turning out to the polls or
even voting for the statehood party in the 2012 island-wide general
elections. Thus, in order to mobilize voters and hoping to benefit from
straight-ticket voting, critics argue, the pro-statehood government
scheduled 2012 plebiscite along with the general elections. The
plebiscite vote was therefore central to many of the races on the 2012
ballot.
Controversies Associated With Plebiscite Votes and Statutes
As Yazmin Garcia-Trejo and I noted
in our previous post,
Federal lawmakers have debated upwards of 110 statutes and plebiscitary
bills between 1900 and 2012. During the same period Congress has only
authorized 1 status plebiscite for Puerto Rico. The 1967 plebiscite
provided U.S. citizens residing in Puerto Rico with a choice among three
status options, namely the Commonwealth territorial status, statehood,
and/or independence. The Commonwealth option garnered a majority (60%)
of the votes. It is important to note, however, that internal divisions
within the statehood and independence parties hampered the performance
of both parties in the plebiscite. In both instances, large numbers of
members refused to vote in the plebiscite. In the case of the
pro-statehood party, the
Partido Estadista Republicano (PAR) (Republican Statehood Party), a faction led by Republican Luis A. Ferré subsequently formed the
PNP in 1968 and at times used the plebiscite as a rallying cry to recruit more members to the party.
(Source: Comisión Estatal de Elecciones, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico)
Since then, the Puerto Rican legislature has enacted three laws
providing for local non-binding plebiscites in 1993, 1998, and 2012. In
all three instances, the pro-statehood
PNP held a majority
control of the Governor and Resident Commissioner’s offices, both houses
of the local legislature, and mayoral offices throughout the island.
Like the 1967 Federal plebiscite, the 1993 law provided for three status
options and the Commonwealth option prevailed with nearly 48.6% of the
vote compared to 46.3% for the Statehood option (see Figure below). It
is important to note, however, that Roberto Sánchez Vilella, a former
pro-Commonwealth governor, and others successfully sued the governor
challenging the failure of the 1993 plebiscite to provide other
alternatives and definitions of the three traditional status options. In
Sánchez Vilella et al. v. ELA et al. [134 D.P.R. 503, 519-520
(1993)] the Puerto Rican Supreme Court affirmed the right of voters to
submit “blank” plebiscitary ballots as a form of protest. Stated
differently, the Puerto Rican Supreme Court unequivocally established
that blank ballots (not to be confused with a failure to vote) are a
legitimate and democratic form of civil disobedience or protest in
Puerto Rican electoral law.
(Source: Comisión Estatal de Elecciones, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico)
Unlike prior plebiscites, the 1998 ballot was mired in controversy
from the beginning. Puerto Rico had recently suffered vast destruction
at the hands of hurricane Georges and voters felt that a plebiscite
represented an unreasonable waste of public funds that could be better
spent in providing aid to victims of the hurricane. In addition, the
pro-statehood Governor Pedro Roselló was experiencing backlash from the
attempted sale of the Puerto Rican telephone company to a private
Spanish corporation and from wide spread corruption scandals within his
administration. Suffice to say that many (over 50% as indicated in
figure below) Puerto Rican voters boycotted the 1998 plebiscite by
filling out the so-called fifth option in the ballot or the “None of the
Above” option. This vote effectively nullified the 1998 plebiscite.
(Source: Comisión Estatal de Elecciones, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico)
Like prior plebiscites, the 2012 law was also mired in various controversies. Also known as the
Democracy Act, early
versions of this plebiscite were introduced in the House of
Representatives between 2005 and 2008 by then Resident Commissioner
Fortuño. With the support of Representative José Serrano (D-NY),
Resident Commissioner Pierluisi was able to successfully shepherd the
Democracy Act of 2010
through the House, but the bill lost traction in the Senate. In 2011,
the Puerto Rican legislature passed a revised version of the
Democracy Act with strong objections from the pro-Commonwealth
PPD leadership.
The leadership of the Puerto Rican Independence Party welcomed the
plebiscite with the understanding that the language of the law was
designed to fragment the Commonwealth option and favor statehood.
Members of the
PIP believed that the U.S. Congress would
unilaterally reject any demands for statehood from Puerto Rico and thus
expose the Puerto Rican electorate to the political limits of the
PNP. The 2012 plebiscite vote is full of controversy and in many ways reflective of the politics of Puerto Rico more broadly.
Stay tuned for additional posts on this topic, including an
interpretation of the results of the 2012 plebiscite vote that will be
released later this week.
Charles R. Venator-Santiago
is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and
the Institute for Latino/a, Caribbean and Latin American Studies at the
University of Connecticut
The commentary of this article reflects the views of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the views of Latino Decisions. Latino
Decisions and Pacific Market Research, LLC make no representations about
the accuracy of the content of the article.
source: Latino Decisions
