In a blog post titled “Time to settle Puerto Rico’s status,” the University of Puerto Rico professor argues that the factual results of the election day plebiscite on the island give Congress clear grounds to act on the issue. He says U.S. lawmakers can comfortably move on the votes cast without paying too much attention to the spin put on the plebiscite by political parties in Puerto Rico.

Rosselló, the youngest son of former two-term New Progressive Party Gov. Pedro Rosselló, points to Ockham’s razor, a principle of logic attributed to medieval philosopher and friar William of Ockham, which states that one should not make more assumptions than the minimum needed; that amongst competing hypothesis, the simplest one tends to be the correct one.

“In the case of the November 6, 2012 plebiscite held in Puerto Rico, this postulate is evident. Exercising their democratic right, the U.S. citizens living in Puerto Rico voted on two fundamental questions to determine the future of their political status,” Rosselló wrote in The Hill. “The first question asked if the islanders wanted to maintain their current status. The second asked if, given a change of status, which alternative they would favor.”

When asked if they “agree that Puerto Rico should continue to have its present form of territorial status?” some 54 percent voted no, “thus rejecting the current territorial/colonial status,” Rosselló said.

With more than 78 percent of the registered voters casting a ballot, the “no” option won by a margin of 140,000 votes, receiving thousands of votes more than any elected official. It won in all eight senatorial districts and 39 out of the 40 representative districts.

In the second question, statehood was favored by 61.11 percent of the voters, whereas free association received 33.34 percent of the votes, and independence 5.55 percent.

“For the first time ever, the citizens of Puerto Rico have agreed on the status issue above party lines, and have made a definite statement to move away from the current territorial status. The questions were clear, and the answers were clear,” according to Rosselló.

Gov. Alejandro García Padilla and his commonwealth Popular Democratic Party argue the ballot was rigged against the current status because it was not included as an option on the second part of the ballot. They point to the nearly 500,000 voters who left this question blank as a protest against that exclusion and have pledged to hold a constituent assembly on the status issue in 2014.

Rosselló, in his blog for The Hill, takes the PDP to task for its interpretation of the vote.

“Proponents of the current status are using an alternative hypothesis, centering the conversation on the second question of the plebiscite, in hopes that the results of the first question will be ignored. With blatant disregard for the people’s expressed will, they try to argue that statehood did not actually win 61 percent of the vote because if you consider the ballots left empty and the ballots cast for other options, the sum of these ‘defeated’ statehood,” Rosselló wrote. “Pardon me? Counting empty ballots? Ockham’s razor has run amuck here. Instead of the simplest explanation or hypothesis being the correct one, they go for a justification dripping with assumptions, fuzzy math and misdirection.”

For Rosselló, the meat is in the first half of the plebiscite ballot.

“Regardless of these questionable efforts by proponents of the current status, it is really the first question of the Puerto Rico plebiscite that merits most serious consideration. It aims at the key principles that are sewed into the fabric of the United States: democracy, liberty, and freedom. It also strikes at the notion that Puerto Ricans could not ‘get their act together’ on the status question, or that they have never ‘rejected the current colonial status.’”

Rosselló, 33, has ruled out a bid for the NPP presidency this year, but has been mentioned as a potential gubernatorial candidate as early as 2016. The MIT and University of Michigan trained bioengineer and neurobiologist is currently heading Boricua ¡Ahora Es!, a nonprofit movement that sponsors a final non-colonial, non-territorial solution to the political status of Puerto Rico. The San Juan-based group’s efforts include sending “citizen lobbyists” to Congress to deliver the certified results of the plebiscite, the sample ballot, and a call to action to all 542 offices on Capitol Hill

“It is noteworthy that, far from being a homogeneous group, the delegation is composed of people that favor different status options, but have all come together to make the will of the people not only be heard, but also acted upon. This fact alone is unprecedented,” Rosselló wrote in The Hill.

The White House has said the results of the status vote “were clear, the people of Puerto Rico want the issue of status resolved, and a majority chose statehood in the second question.”

Any statehood petition, however, would need the approval of Congress. Congress has not considered a statehood petition in more than half a century, since Hawaii and Alaska were added as states in 1959. Rosselló acknowledges that movement on the issue must come through Capitol Hill.

“So, what should Congress do?,” he asks. “Here we invoke Ockham’s razor again, as well as the Declaration of Independence, which states that “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.’”

Congress can choose to “ignore the will of the people in Puerto Rico by elaborating some as-of-yet hypothesis, or by borrowing arguments from the proponents of the status quo,” Rosselló wrote. “Alternatively, they can abide by the simple and elegant way in which the people of Puerto Rico have come together, have chosen to move away from the current status, and are therefore primed to accept a Congress-implemented self determination process with valid non-territorial options.”

Rosselló signals that the stakes of inaction are high in terms of U.S. standing.

“It is time to act and show the world why the U.S. is the standard-bearer for democracy in the world. It is time to respond immediately to the will of the citizens of Puerto Rico, having Congress lead the way with viable status options for this American territory,” he wrote. “The world is watching… the power is in your hands.”

Moisés López

SIGA ABOGANDO
Gracias Mr. Letterman
lo que dice es la verdad
no queremos mas colonia
que venga la estadidad