Puerto Rico leader: No more Sugar Barons
Charles Herbert Allen’s arrival to Puerto Rico on April 27, 1900 — as the first U.S. civilian to serve as the island’s governor — was, perhaps, his most consequential and profitable step in a long journey toward becoming president of the American Sugar Refining Company, now known as Domino Sugar. This was because, as governor of Puerto Rico, he consolidated an island-wide sugar industry monopoly that, more often than not, operated and profited at Puerto Rico’s expense. As such, the then-poverty stricken Caribbean island was quick to generate massive fortunes throughout the first quarter of the 20th century as well as create a generation of so-called “Sugar Barons,” yet was slow, painfully slow, to develop sustainable democratic institutions and reap economic rewards.
Unfathomable as it may seem, more than a century later, a March 29, 2018 letter sent by Utah Republican Congressman Rob Bishop to Chairman José B. Carrión III and the members of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico is drafted with the same sort of disdain and disrespect towards democratic institutions and governance that Charles Herbert Allen once showed. It seems that, as far as Honorable Rob Bishop is concerned, more than a century of joint progress towards the perfection of a more fully democratic relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States has elapsed in vain. Honorable Rob Bishop would rather that Puerto Rico remain subject to the intolerable “belongs, but is not part of ” axiom outlined by the Supreme Court of the United States in the Insular Cases, which is nothing more than the territorial equivalent of the “separate, but equal” doctrine it espoused in Plessy v. Ferguson.
I say this because, in his March 29, 2018 letter, Honorable Rob Bishop all but demands that the Oversight Board — composed of non-elected officials — usurp the functions of the democratically elected Puerto Rican government, at the expense, of course, of the 3.4 million American citizens who inhabit the island. More specifically, Honorable Rob Bishop requests more creditor engagement on the part of the Oversight Board, instead of expressing support for hurricane-battered Puerto Rico and its citizens.
Quick to show the true motivations behind his missive, Honorable Rob Bishop consistently elevates the concerns of bondholders and creditors on the mainland above the government of Puerto Rico’s concern for the well-being of its constituents. Not only is Honorable Rob Bishop’s letter insensitive to the point of remorse, but also plagued with a plethora of misstatements, mischaracterizations and inaccuracies to which I, as secretary of state of Puerto Rico, feel compelled to respond.
As a lifelong Republican in favor of statehood for Puerto Rico, it pains me to see a fellow Republican mistakenly cite statutory provisions of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act of 2016, also known as PROMESA, to promote the encroachment of the federal government on what should otherwise be considered a state’s sovereign rights.
PROMESA does not, as Honorable Rob Bishop suggests, entitle the Oversight Board to take over the role of the elected government of Puerto Rico. Instead, Section 205 of PROMESA clearly provides that the Oversight Board will have the authority to make non-binding recommendations. Precisely because the governor of Puerto Rico was granted significant flexibility to adopt sound recommendations and to decline to adopt unsound recommendations, the Oversight Board cannot — as Honorable Rob Bishop would undemocratically have in his letter — impose its recommendations over the objection of the Puerto Rican government.
Therefore, issues of public policy and governance are the government of Puerto Rico’s sole prerogative, and should not be interfered with. I respectfully suggest that Honorable Rob Bishop instead focus on meeting the goals his Congress set for the Task Force on Economic Growth for Puerto Rico, none of which have been met.
Allowing what Honorable Rob Bishop requests in his March 29, 2018 letter — and caving into his incorrect interpretation of the statutory provisions contained in PROMESA — would, quite simply, turn the clock back a century to a time when the federal government simply imposed its will upon Puerto Rico and unilaterally profited from what its economy produced. In attempting to subject the well-being of 3.4 million American citizens to the concerns of mainland bondholders and creditors, then, Honorable Rob Bishop resembles a 21st century Charles Herbert Allen, a modernday — yet equally insensitive and aloof — Sugar Baron. I, as secretary of state of Puerto Rico, will not stand for this.