President Trump recently said, among other things, that “with the mayor of San Juan as bad as she is and as incompetent as she is, Puerto Rico shouldn’t be talking about statehood until they get some people that really know what they are doing”.
This non sequitur statement follows his recent comments and tweets that his administration performance during and after Hurricane María had been an “unsung success,” and that the approximate 3,000 death toll reported by the George Washington University study had been inflated for political motives by the Democrats.
{mosads}Puerto Rico’s Gov. Ricardo Rosselló, departing from his usual measured responses to Trump’s utterances, said that the president does not favor statehood based on a personal feud with San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, and that the comment was insensitive and disrespectful to over 3 million Americans who live in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. He added, correctly, that the issue of statehood if fundamentally a matter of civil rights and political equality.
That been said, we must acknowledge what is obvious: Trump’s statements are noteworthy because he holds the Office of the President, which executes and shapes public policy. Upon his exit from the presidency, his opinion will be as relevant as that of any other citizen. Until then, his opinions, character traits and personal animosities are factors that need to be objectively taken into account in the political process, regardless of our preferences.
If the last two years have taught us anything is that Trump is governed by his passions, appetites and self-perceived short-term advantages. His political opportunism and contradictions are belied by his accidental relationship with the truth.
His statement against statehood for Puerto Rico at this time, for example, is self-justified by his personal animosity to the San Juan mayor, who by the way does not favor statehood. Any thoughtful person will realize that one thing has nothing to do with the other, and that an argument is not just a string of unrelated propositions. Trump’s opinions remind me of Mark Twain’s quip on New England weather: if you don’t like it, wait a minute.
From a legal perspective, it is important to underscore that Article IV, Section 3, of the Constitution subjects the territories to the plenary powers of Congress, not to the Executive branch. That is, any decision on the future of Puerto Rico lies primarily with Congress.
It is precisely for this reason that Puerto Rico’s non-voting Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González-Colón (R), introduced H.R. 6246, a statehood admission bill for Puerto Rico. This is the seventh occasion in the last 20 years that the House of Representatives has entertained some kind of bill concerning Puerto Rico’s status options. With the exception of the 1998 Young bill, the House has failed to act on its Constitutional responsibility. In the Senate, not since then Senator Bennet Johnson’s 1989 Puerto Rico Referendum Act has the issue been addressed.
The Republican majority in both House and Senate would be well reminded of the GOP 2016 party platform. “We support the right of the United States citizens of Puerto Rico to be admitted to the Union as a fully sovereign state. We further recognize the historic significance of the 2012 local referendum in which a 54 percent majority voted to end Puerto Rico’s current status as a U.S. territory, and 61 percent chose statehood over options for sovereign nationhood. We support the federally sponsored political status referendum authorized and funded by an Act of Congress in 2014 to ascertain the aspirations of the people of Puerto Rico. If the 2012 local vote for statehood is ratified, Congress should approve an enabling act with terms for Puerto Rico’s future admission as the Fifty-First State of the Union.” The 2012 local plebiscite was ratified by 97 percent of the participating electors in June 2017.
The above is the official GOP position under which Trump and all members of Congress ran. Regardless of Trump’s shifting opinion, the House’s failure to timely act on H.R. 6246 should be understood by voters in these 2018 midterm elections as a lack of resolve by the GOP to honor its commitments.
Andrés L. Córdova is a law professor at Inter American University of Puerto Rico, where he teaches contracts and property courses. He is also an occasional columnist on legal and political issues at the Spanish daily El Vocero de Puerto Rico.