House Democrats are pushing a bill to authorize a referendum on statehood in Puerto Rico. The Washington Times has a good editorial opposing the bill. They point out that among other features the bill would allow people of Puerto Rican origin who now live outside Puerto Rico to vote in the referendum, that the questions on the ballot would be framed in a way to favor statehood and that Puerto Rico would be the first state with an overwhelming majority whose first language is not English. All good arguments.
Obviously House Democrats are motivated at least in part by crass political calculation: they figure that a state of Puerto Rico would elect two Democratic senators and five or six Democratic House members. That may not be quite true: the current Governor of Puerto Rico, Luis Fortuño, is a member of the pro-statehood New Progressive party and identified as a Republican when he served as Resident Commissioner, Puerto Rico’s non-voting representative, in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2005 to 2009.
