Written by

LUIS G. FORTUÑO

Throughout the United States, Republicans share a bedrock commitment to the core principles and values that have made ours the most free and prosperous nation in the history of the world. And if America’s course is to be set aright this election year, more than ever before the nation stands in need of our commitment and ability to implement public policy in support of free enterprise, limited government, fiscal responsibility, low taxes and the enduring moral values of our Judeo-Christian tradition.

The 2012 platform approved by the Iowa Republican Party features planks in support of many of those core principles and values that unite us, and to which I am proud to lend my wholehearted support. After all, those are the same principles and values that I and our Republican-majority legislature in Puerto Rico have been successfully putting into practice since 2009 and which are propelling the island forward once again in the right direction.

At the same time, however, the state platform approved by our fellow Republicans in the Hawkeye State also contains some planks that are evidently ill-considered, in addition to going against the grain of some of the party’s most basic tenets and best interests at the national level.

Such is the case with an unfortunate plank in opposition to statehood for Puerto Rico. The error is particularly egregious because it opposes statehood for Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico in the same breath, without offering any rationale for so doing, much less taking into account the fundamental difference between the two.

Unlike the nation’s capital, which faces a constitutional impediment to statehood, Puerto Rico faces no such impediment. On the contrary, with Republican support and leadership — both nationally as well as on the island itself — the 3.7 million disenfranchised citizens of America’s oldest and largest territory are well on their way to following the same path to statehood followed by the territories that have preceded them, including Iowa.

The attainment of statehood is, in fact, the only political status that is fully consistent with the aspirations of the people of the island as expressed in the preamble to Puerto Rico’s 1952 territorial constitution, which enshrines American citizenship, the aspiration to continually enrich our democratic heritage in the individual and collective enjoyment of its rights and privileges, and loyalty to the principles of the federal constitution as determining factors in the life of the territory’s body politic.

In its general election platforms from 1940 to the present day, the Republican Party has consistently favored statehood as the territory’s natural destiny. Our 2012 presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, who scored one of his most decisive presidential primary victories in Puerto Rico earlier this year, stands in a long line of Republican standard-bearers who have championed this cause. Important party organizations such as the National Federation of Republican Women have also endorsed statehood for Puerto Rico.

In addition to being right for Puerto Rico, statehood is also right for the United States as a whole. It is simply untenable for such a large number of U.S. citizens — with a population larger than that of 22 of the sister states and a territorial extension bigger than that of two states — to continue to be bereft of the full rights and responsibilities of the citizenship we share with the rest of our fellow Americans.

May we also never forget that from World War I to the global war on terror, hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans have answered the highest call of duty that can be made of a citizen of the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, serving with valor and distinction. Thousands made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation.

Throughout the entire 20th century, Puerto Rico contributed much to the nation as a territory. But in this 21st century of ours, it is increasingly clear that only through statehood will our citizens be able to make our greatest advances and contributions to the greatness, progress and prosperity of America.

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June 19, 2012

Dear Compatriots!

The IOWA GOP approved a platform rejecting political equality for American citizens residing in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico became a territory of the United States as a
result of the Versailles Treaty ending the Spanish American War in 1898. In 1917 American citizenship was granted to all residents of the territory. Since then more
American citizens of Puerto Ricans descendant have shed their blood in defending democratic and equality ideals abroad than the majority of the state of the Union per capita.
The same ideals that the IOWA GOP is denying with the segregationist statement of American citizens living in the Territory of Puerto Rico.

Governor Mitt Romney has endorsed political equality and statehood for the American citizens residing in the territory of Puerto Rico. WHY? Because of the 8.4 millions
American citizens of Puerto Rican descendant 4.7 live in battleground states. Governor Romney understand that the American citizens of Puerto Rican descendant will be vital
and pivotal in the Presidential Elections of 2012 in key battleground states.

Your posture will be notice by the Hispanic Population, the largest minority and will be a majority by 2050, nation wide.Your position is a segregationist policy. It is based on exclusion
rather than inclusion. It is the same as the «Apartheid» policy in the minority white government of the National Party in South Africa. Your policy clashes with our Nation’s diversity and
adopts a confrontational and polarizing posturing.

What the Iowa GOP Party has done is providing very persuasive fuel to the re-election efforts of Barack Obama in Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina
and Georgia. The IOWA GOP should have consulted the Puerto Rico GOP before listening to the mermaid songs of political pundits ( like Mr. Roberto de Posada) with consulting contracts with the colonial
party which is supporting the re-election efforts of Mr. Obama. But mostly it will affect the image of the People of the State of Iowa among the largest minority in the Nation
that will be the majority in 2050.

Please read the following political commentary published on Latin Trends Magazine,(April 2012 Edition)  a National Hispanic publication. It will provide with elements of judgement that apparently you did not have when you decided to oppose
political equality for the American citizens residing in the Territory of Puerto Rico.