Puerto Rico’s status may rest in hands of Georgia voters

An important vote that could greatly affect the lives of 8 million U.S. citizens of Puerto Rican descent — including the estimated 300,000 living in Connecticut — took place Nov. 3.

No, not that vote.

I’m talking about the referendum on statehood that garnered 52 percent of the vote, the third islandwide vote in a row where statehood has earned majority support since 2012.

Statehood for Puerto Rico has been a Republican platform staple since 1992, and the incoming Biden-Harris administration has promised to support statehood for Puerto Rico. Sounds like flag manufacturers will soon be making a killing on those newly minted 51-star flags, right? Not necessarily.

Puerto Rico’s path to statehood is more serpentine than it seems, and may depend on Democrats winning the Jan. 5 Senatorial runoff election in Georgia.

How did the fate of 2.8 million residents of Puerto Rico and, to a lesser degree, that of the 5.8 million people of Puerto Rican descent (all of them U.S. citizens) come to depend on 7.6 million voters in Georgia? It’s a long story — 122 years long.

In 1898, the United States invaded Puerto Rico and “liberated” it from Spain, only to condemn it to colonial status ever since. Let’s consider the costs of repairing devastation caused by hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017. If Puerto Rico were a state, rather than a U.S. territory, it would have been eligible for government aid it does not qualify for now.

In addition, help might have been quicker to arrive if failure to provide timely and adequate aid to U.S. citizens on the island came with a heftier political cost in the form of lost Congressional seats, or the presidency. But because residents of Puerto Rico vote for neither, there was little political fallout from inadequate, poorly allocated and late-to-arrive aid.

On the other hand, if Puerto Rico were a sovereign country in a Compact of Free Association with the United States, it would have been free to accept the many offers of foreign humanitarian aid it received from governments the world over following these natural disasters.

That brings us back to the urgency with which some leaders, among them Republican Marco Rubio of Florida, want to proceed with the statehood issue. Rubio believes cobbling together a majority of prostatehood votes in both chambers and from both sides of the aisle is doable. He might be right. However, some GOP leaders, as well as some progressives in the Democratic Party, oppose pushing for statehood.

Anti-statehood sentiment in Congress may be due to the power wielded by deep-pocketed financial industry players who benefit from the island’s 100year-plus limbo status as a U.S. territory, and have the money to spend on lobbyists to ensure the island remains at their mercy.

Puerto Rico’s status precludes it from borrowing money from abroad, and as a state, the island would have access to federal funding it currently lacks. This situation has forced the insular government to borrow money from the likes of “vulture” funds. The island’s debt, renegotiated with bond holders by federally appointed committee in February, currently stands at $11 billion.

Among the hedge funds that currently hold the still relatively high-interest bonds propping up Puerto Rico’s debt are many with offices and/or top-ranking officers in lower Fairfield County.

Another obstacle is the relatively slim margin of victory. U.S. Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nydia Valazquez have suggested this is far from an overwhelming enough mandate to preclude other options, such as full sovereignty or a more reciprocal form of shared governance with the United States.

Ocasio-Cortez and Valazquez, Democrats representing New York, recently introduced the Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act of 2020, which would fund a “status convention,” where delegates elected by island residents would explore and debate a range of status options. Whatever option delegates agreed to would be voted on in another island-wide referendum that would then be taken up by Congress.

Even if the Ocasio-Cortez and Valazquez bill, or one calling for statehood, were to pass the House of Representatives this year, it would likely stall in the Senate. Which circles us back to Georgia’s runoff election. Because, like nearly everything to do with U.S. policy these days, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) seems to hold all the cards in this complicated game.

Despite his party’s long-held support for Puerto Rico to enter the Union, McConnell told Fox News Radio in September that he opposes making Puerto Rico a state and will not bring a bill calling for statehood to the floor for debate, since doing so would ensure the Democrats two Senate seats “in perpetuity.”

“If I’m the majority leader and Chuck Schumer’s not, we’re not changing the filibuster rule, we’re not admitting the District (of Columbia) and Puerto Rico as states, and we’re not packing the courts,” McConnell said. Such reasoning defies logic, since the island’s current governor, non-voting Congressional representative, and its probable incoming governor (yeah, there’s some last-minute counting and recounting going on in that election as well), are all Republicans.

Nevertheless, as long as McConnell controls the docket, Puerto Rico is unlikely to attain that coveted star on the flag — unless the voters of Georgia overturn the balance of power in the Senate.

Among the hedge funds that currently hold the still relatively high-interest bonds propping up Puerto Rico’s debt are many with offices and/or top-ranking officers in lower Fairfield County.