After 125 years of U.S. rule in Puerto Rico, voters now have given the most convincing mandate ever for a new political status option, ushering in a new era of American federalism for our nation’s last large and populous territory.
In a referendum coinciding with our national elections on Nov. 5, 2024, a 57 percent majority of voters among 3 million Americans in Puerto Rico clearly expressed a pronounced political will for our last large territory to be admitted as the 51st state of the union.
This new pro-statehood majority invokes the historical and constitutional precedents for governance of 32 territories until admitted to the union on equal footing with all states. The historic 2024 vote for statehood is the second milestone on the road to more stable federal-territorial relations.
The first milestone was a 54 percent majority vote in 2012 to end the current territorial status. Taken together, the 2012 and 2024 votes restore the relevance of Jefferson’s landmark Northwest Ordinance (1787), the original roadmap for a democratic territorial status resolution that is a founding document of the republic.
As such, the 2012/2024 votes supersede politically and morally the Supreme Court’s 1901-1922 rulings leaving Puerto Rico in a perpetual colonial status of political, economic and constitutional limbo. The court excluded Puerto Rico from full national citizenship under the federal Constitution because neither Congress nor the residents of the territory acted decisively on future status options.
Beguiled by experiments in “autonomy” incompatible with American federalism, Puerto Rico failed to seek either nationhood like the Philippines territory in 1946, or statehood granted to the territories of Alaska and Hawaii in 1959. As a result, Puerto Rico’s economy and resiliency from man-made and natural disasters lag behind states.
Puerto Rico actually is more statehood-ready politically and economically than Alaska and several other territories at the time of admission. Permanent union on terms approved by Congress is imperative to ensure Puerto Rico is not at undue risk of becoming a failed colonial client regime.
Full application of the Constitution also is now the only democratic pathway for delivering on the Declaration of Independence promise of government by consent. That transcendental value is redeemed only by fully equal representation in Congress and the Electoral College under U.S. Constitution Article I, Section 2 and Article II, Section 1, respectively.
Concomitantly, the 2024 vote for statehood also invokes international law redefining the people as indigenous people with no country, as well as U.S. citizens without rights that come only with statehood. Puerto Rico is now a domestic political subdivision of the U.S. in which the people freely have expressed their will to become a state of the union in compliance with the U.N. Charter and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The 2024 status vote ballot also included options of independence, or independence with a treaty of “free association,” a close but non-colonial status under U.N. Resolutions. The 2024 majority vote for statehood constitutes rejection of independence and “free association” by the majority of the American citizens of Puerto Rico.
Instead, the voters chose the domestic U.S. model of constitutional federalism, which Americans from Puerto Rico have defended at home and around the world for over a century. Indeed, military service by Puerto Rico is higher per capita than for citizens in the 50 states. With China expanding its reach from Cuba throughout the Caribbean, U.S. national interest in resolving the status of the territory may soon become a strategic as well as political priority.
Howard Hills served as White House lead counsel for territorial status negotiations with U.S. governed territories now comprising Palau, Micronesian Federation and Marshall Islands (1982-1986); Counsel for Interagency Affairs, Associated State Affairs, U.S. State Department (1986-1989); Senior Advisor, Office of Interior Secretary (2020-2021); Senior Advisor, Special Presidential Envoy Pacific Island regional security treaties (2021-2023).
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