[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 138 (Monday, September 30, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1829-E1830]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       THE UPDATED UNITED STATES-PUERTO RICO POLITICAL STATUS ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. DON YOUNG

                               of alaska

                    in the house of representatives

                      Saturday, September 28, 1996

  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the updated 
United States-Puerto Rico Political Status Act, H.R. 4281, which 
contains provisions regarding the role of

[[Page E1830]]

language in Federal and local law as developed in consultation with the 
Republican Policy Committee during our deliberations on H.R. 3024 
regarding English.
  I want to thank Members of the House Leadership, including key 
chairmen from various committees, for contributing their time and 
energy at this hectic point of the Congress in forging a consensus 
regarding the need for the Congress to consider this important measure 
affecting the people of Puerto Rico. I particularly want to commend Mr. 
Christopher Cox, Chairman of that Committee, for bringing to bear his 
considerable expertise and providing intellectual leadership in seeking 
the kind of compromise that could and should have been reached.
  It was just yesterday, on Friday, September 27, that I introduced 
H.R. 4228, a version of the United States-Puerto Rico Political Status 
Act with proposed revisions we had hoped would provide a basis for 
final agreement on this legislation. It was expected that we then would 
take the revised bill to the floor of the House for a vote in the form 
of an amended H.R. 3024: the original bill providing for resolution of 
Puerto Rico's status through a Congressionally prescribed process of 
self-determination.
  Although overwhelming approval of H.R. 3024 by the House was at hand, 
key sponsors of H.R. 3024 were not willing to go to the floor and ask 
for its approval without making a one-word change that would have 
brought the proposed revisions within the boundaries of limited 
government, rule of law and constitutionality. I had agreed to include 
the amendments as proposed in H.R. 4228 in order to move the process 
forward and try to resolve differences about the bill, and I stood by 
that commitment. But it became clear that unless there was a correction 
of one word the bill would not meet the most minimal test of 
constitutionality, and many of the bill's strongest supporters felt 
that was an unacceptable way to proceed.
  To be specific, Section 4(b)(C)(7) of the amendments as proposed 
would impose a requirement that English be the exclusive language of 
instruction in public schools in Puerto Rico should it become a state. 
Although the Congressional Research Service had provided a written 
legal opinion to the author of this provision on July 31, 1996, 
concluding on the basis of Coyle v. Smith (221 U.S. 559) that this 
provision would not withstand even the lowest standard of 
constitutional scrutiny, its inclusion was insisted upon.
  The commitment of the 104th Congress to English as our national 
language could have been carried out in the context of self-
determination for Puerto Rico by simply changing the word ``the'' in 
the last sentence of Section 4(a)(C)(7) to the word ``a,'' which would 
have been consistent with the use of the word ``an'' instead of ``the'' 
in the preceding sentence. This imprecision and inconsistency, coupled 
with the failure to address a valid constitutional question, led to 
inability of several Members to concur in the process that would have 
been required to bring the matter before the House.
  The sponsors of this bill had wanted to see it approved by the House 
prior to the adjournment of the 104th Congress because we felt that we 
had a commitment to do all within our means to implement the principles 
set forth in a February 29, 1996, response to Legislature of Puerto 
Rico Resolution 62 of November 14, 1994, asking the 104th Congress to 
establish constitutionally valid political status definitions for 
Puerto Rico. However, the desire to get our work done in a timely way, 
out of respect for the elected legislature in Puerto Rico and 
commitment to resolution of the status of 3.7 million U.S. citizens, 
was not seen by key Members as sufficient cause to ignore a 
constitutional flaw in the language, especially one that so easily and 
reasonably could have been corrected.
  I believe in limits on Federal power, and I believe in the 10th 
Amendment reservation of rights to the States and to the people. I took 
an oath of office to uphold the Constitution, to protect and defend it, 
and while I was willing to introduce H.R. 4228 as I agreed to do in 
order to move this bill forward through the process, it was not 
acceptable to the sponsors of the bill to knowingly ignore a 
constitutional infirmity.
  I am as ready as anyone to vote for a law that I believe to be 
constitutional even though I know it will be tested and may be struck 
down as a result of judicial review. That is how our constitutional 
system works. But that is not what this problem was all about. Here we 
were faced with a proposal to impose of the U.S. citizens of Puerto 
Rico, should they choose and should Congress grant admission to the 
union, a requirement that Congress has never imposed on any other 
State.
  Making clear the determination and commitment of Congress regarding 
English as the official language of the Federal government in Puerto 
Rico should it become a State, and regarding continuation of the 
current law in Puerto Rico making English an official language, is 
something we could have worked out as the legislation moved forward. 
Those provisions were acceptable at this stage and could have been 
refined. But the imposition of a Federal requirement that violates the 
10th Amendment and would discriminate against U.S. citizens in a future 
State of Puerto Rico has an almost coercive or even punitive dimension 
that should not be part of a democratic self-determination process.
  It is bad enough that U.S. citizens residing in Puerto Rico do not 
have equal rights under the current territorial clause status. To 
suggest that inequality would continue if Congress admits Puerto Rico 
as a State is something to which the sponsors of this legislation would 
not be a party. With statehood comes equal protection and due process 
rights which Congress cannot take away, and the proposal to deny a 
future State of those rights knowing that such denial is 
constitutionally impermissible can only have the effect of confusing 
rather than clarifying the choices before Congress and the voters in 
the territory.
  Ironically, the provision imposing English language as the exclusive 
language of public instruction would be constitutionally plausible if 
it were imposed on the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in an exercise of 
the territorial clause of Congress at the present time. Only as a State 
or a separate nation will Puerto Rico be constitutionally protected 
from the degree of Congressional discretion that exists under our 
Constitution with respect to unincorporated territories such as Puerto 
Rico. A constitutionally guaranteed status subject to the same 
limitations on Federal powers as other States enjoy, or a status 
governed by the law of nations and treaties between sovereign 
countries, are the options that would enable the people of Puerto Rico 
to protect and preserve their language and their culture.
  Only the current status leaves the residents of Puerto Rico, with 
their current less than equal statutory citizenship rights and 
impermanent political status, vulnerable to the broad discretion of a 
future Congress, which will not be bound legally or politically by 
whatever status arrangement may exist today. These are the realities 
that need to be understood so that informed self-determination can take 
place.
  Misinforming the people in Puerto Rico that, in the event of 
statehood, Congress could do something that we know it cannot do in a 
State would impede rather than advance the goal of free and informed 
self-determination. That is why one word, not even a noun or verb, was 
too important for the sponsors of this bill to ignore.
  The bill I am introducing today, H.R. 4281, contains a new Section 
3(b), a new Section (4)(a)(C)(7), and a new Section 4(b)(1)(C) that 
will be the referred to as we develop legislation to be introduced in 
the 105th Congress which will address the issue of English as an 
official language in a manner that supports rather than undermines the 
process for free and informed self-determination under the United 
States-Puerto Rico Political Status Act when it becomes law.

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