News
Puerto Ricans Favor Statehood for First Time
Referendum is nonbinding, but compels lawmakers in Washington to act, says Secretary of State
By Mariano Castillo
(CNN) — In an overshadowed Election
Day contest, Puerto Ricans voted in favor
of statehood in a nonbinding referendum,
marking the first time such an initiative
garnered a majority.
Puerto Ricans were asked about their
desires in two parts. First, by a 54 percent
to 46 percent margin, voters rejected their
current status as a U.S. commonwealth. In
a separate question, 61 percent chose
statehood as the alternative, compared
with 33 percent for the semi-autonomous
“sovereign free association” and 6 percent
for outright independence.
An economic downturn and shrinking
population were the factors that con-
tributed to the support for statehood,
where referendums in 1967, 1993 and
1998 failed, Puerto Rico Secretary of
State Kenneth McClintock said.
“I think people just came to realize that
the current relationship simply does not
create the number of jobs that we need,”
he said.
An exodus of residents from the island
has culminated in a staggering statistic:
Fifty-eight percent of Puerto Ricans live
in the mainland United States, McClin-
tock said.
“When you have a political status that
scares away half of your population, it is
time to reject that political status,” he said.
But some analysts say the views on
statehood have not changed, despite Tues-
day’s results.
The preference of many voters is to con-
sider a report by the Obama
administration that lays out several non-
colonial options before choosing an
alternative status, said Jorge Benitez, a
political scientist at the University of
Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras. This option,
which is supported by the party that won
the governorship, did not appear on the
ballot.
“This isn’t to say that support for state-
hood hasn’t increased; it has,” Benitez
said. “But the only thing we can decipher
with certainty from the vote is that the
people of Puerto Rico want a change to
News
An exodus of residents from the island has culminated in a staggering statistic:
Fifty-eight percent of Puerto Ricans live in the mainland United States.
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the current status.
“It isn’t clear what change we want,
but we want change,” he said.
The results of the referendum met with
other criticisms, too.
There were voters who prefer the cur-
rent status but didn’t agree with the way
it was defined on the ballot, thereby
inflating the number of votes against the
status quo, said Luis Agrait, a history
professor at the University of Puerto
Rico.
Secondly, a large number of ballots —
one-third of all votes cast — were left
blank on the question of preferred alter-
native status. If you assume those blank
votes are anti-statehood votes, the true
result for the statehood option would be
less than 50 percent, Agrait argues.
But McClintock accounts for the num-
ber of blank votes by explaining that
those who voted to keep the current sta-
tus would have left the question of
alternatives blank.
The referendum is nonbinding, but it
compels lawmakers in Washington to
act, he said.
“The people are withdrawing their
consent to be governed the way they are
governed,” McClintock said, citing the
Declaration of Independence, which
states that a government’s power comes
from the consent of those governed.
“Congress will have to address this
and will have to pay attention,” he said.
The roughly 4 million residents of the
Puerto Rico are American citizens but
couldn’t vote for president, but the
almost 5 million Puerto Ricans living in
the 50 U.S. states have full voting rights.
The territory played a role in presiden-
tial politics this year during the GOP
primaries, when candidates Mitt Rom-
ney and Rick Santorum visited the
island, seeking its delegates for the pri-
mary election.
Santorum, a former Pennsylvania sen-
ator, created a small political firestorm
on the island when he said English
should be the principal language in
Puerto Rico before it could gain state-
hood.
Romney said he would have “no pre-
conditions” on language for Puerto Rico
to gain statehood, though during a CNN
debate, he said English should be the
nation’s official language.
Last year, President Obama made an
official visit to Puerto Rico, the first
such visit by a president in 50 years.