Puerto Rico Democracy Act Of 2009
Floor Speech
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Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I rise today in opposition to this bill. It strongly deviates from the procedures followed by other States to seek statehood, and it leaves numerous questions about the implications of statehood unanswered in this particular case.
H.R. 2499 is the wrong way to go about achieving statehood and breaks from the precedents set, as I mentioned, of other States and, most recently, those States that we entered into the Union in the last century, Alaska and Hawaii. Both of these States conducted their own vote on the question of statehood. When a strong majority voted in favor of statehood in each of these cases, it was only then that they went to Congress asking them to respond to that vote.
This bill has the process entirely backwards. This bill is a bill asking Puerto Rico if it wants to be a State, not the other way around. This is a dramatic departure from the long-established precedent of how other States sought admission to the Union.
This bill has Congress, as a result, blessing statehood before Puerto Rico even votes to express their will. Rather than receiving the request of statehood from a strong majority of the people of Puerto Rico, expressed through a locally initiated vote, this bill has Congressmen soliciting Puerto Ricans on the question of statehood.
Now, Mr. Chair, let me be very clear. I'm sympathetic to the people of Puerto Rico having the right and ability to vote on their own political future. But this bill is not--I want to repeat--not the only way that this can happen. In fact, this bill is not necessary for Puerto Rico to hold a self-determination vote. Puerto Rico can hold such a vote right now, today, without any action of Congress. And they have done it three times in the past.
Furthermore, Congress is asking Puerto Rico if it wishes to be a State without a clear understanding of the implications of statehood and the conditions that would be required to join the Union. First, there is the question of what statehood would cost the U.S. taxpayers in increased Federal spending. We really don't know the answer to that, but we do think it is higher. And the reason for that is we asked CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, for information on that. And they have not provided an up-to-date analysis of the cost of statehood. So in an effort to somehow quantify the costs, my committee staff reviewed information by the Congressional Research Service. The spending on just 10 Federal programs, Mr. Chairman, would cost an estimated $4.5 billion to $7.7 billion per year. Now, that's only 10 programs. We put all of the other costs together, you can only imagine that it may be higher than that.
So before voting on this bill, I think that Members ought to know if there is a cost and what that cost would be. This information could be calculated, but it is not being done. Without this information, in my view, H.R. 2499 should not be passed.
Second, Mr. Chairman, there's a question of reapportioning House seats. According to CRS, based on a population of approximately 4 million people, if Puerto Rico were to become a State, it would be entitled, rightfully, to two Senate seats and six seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Without increasing the size--435 Members of the House--States could lose an existing seat or not receive an additional seat after the 2010 Census. Again, this is according to CRS. Those States, by the way, Mr. Chairman, include Arizona, Missouri, New York, South Carolina, Texas, and my home State of Washington. The public deserves to know whether their State would lose representation to provide six of 435 House seats to Puerto Rico, or whether their proposed solution is that the Nation needs more Members of Congress. In other words, increase the number of Members from 435 to 440 or 441.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, there is the question of whether English should be the official language of Puerto Rico. When a similar bill was debated in the House in 1998, an amendment on the issue of English as the official language was allowed to be offered on the floor of this House and allowed to be debated. Unfortunately, this time the Democrat majority has blocked direct amendments on this issue. Currently, both Spanish and English are the official languages of Puerto Rico. However, as a practical matter, Puerto Rico is predominantly Spanish-speaking. Spanish is used in the state legislature, local courts, businesses, and in schools.
Now, during our history, the matter of the English language was addressed during the admission of other States into the Union. And those States include Arizona, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. So I think it's only fair and appropriate to address and debate English as the official language in regard to statehood for Puerto Rico.
So, Mr. Chairman, we should not move forward with this bill until there are answers to those three issues, at least, that I have brought up. I think it would be more fair and more responsible to the residents and the 50 States and the people if we had answers to those questions before, and the conditions of statehood, rather than doing it before we have even gotten to that point.
So for those reasons, Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. If the gentleman would yield, this is a point because my argument was, and I stated three other issues, we ought to know what we are doing because it has been suggested that this is not a statehood bill. But I have responded to at least that remark by saying it may not be a strict statehood bill, but it certainly gives blessing to an outcome on which we don't know what that outcome is. If it becomes association, then what do we do?
I just want to say that I think the gentleman makes a good point because the bottom line in all of this is there are too many unanswered questions on a process where we are blessing an outcome to make a determination whether we should have another, add to our Union the 51st State. I think that is serious, and I appreciate the gentleman for yielding.
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