[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 107 (Thursday, June 22, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H5051-H5052]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 THE HYPE OF STATEHOOD FOR PUERTO RICO

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, so the ruling party in Puerto Rico staged 
an election, and they are very proud of the results. They say 97 
percent of Puerto Ricans support statehood and that the United States 
should grant statehood right away because of it.
  Yeah, they got 97 percent of the vote. That is pretty impressive; the 
kind of numbers that would make Putin jealous and Saddam Hussein green 
with envy if he weren't dead already.

[[Page H5052]]

  The reason why the statehooders got 97 percent of the vote was pretty 
much the same reason those two guys get 97 percent of the vote: only 
one political party participated.
  All the other parties thought the election was so rigged and so 
predetermined for the outcome the sponsors wanted that they didn't even 
think it was worth participating.
  The vast majority of Puerto Ricans agree. Only 23 percent of the 
people voted. Seventy-seven percent boycotted the election because they 
didn't think it was worth their time; and they were absolutely right, 
but I guess in the era of alternative facts and made-up statistics 
about how many people attend your inauguration, you can try to make a 
one-party vote of 23 percent of the people look like a mandate for 
statehood. But I am here to warn my fellow Democrats not to believe the 
hype for one second.

  Those who are peddling the fantasy of statehood sometimes call 
themselves Democrats, but we should be aware of an elephant in donkey's 
clothing.
  Let's look at leaders of the statehood party here in Washington. Our 
colleague, the Resident Commissioner who ran on the statehood ticket, 
is a Republican who caucuses with the Republicans here in the House. 
She is a proud supporter of Donald Trump and pals around with Steve 
King and other Members who we might say aren't too friendly to Latinos 
and Latino causes, much less the Democratic Party line.
  The Governor's Washington, D.C., office is headed by a Republican, 
Carlos Mercader, who was appointed to the position by Governor Rossello 
after serving as executive director of the rightwing political 
organization called Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, 
infamous for its constant bashing, yes, of President Obama.
  That is who is pushing statehood in D.C., which makes me wonder why 
any Democrat would be embracing them, especially the chairman of the 
DNC, unless, of course, as the media reports, it is a payback for votes 
for DNC chairmanship.
  And as for Governor Ricardo Rossello, leader of the statehood party, 
the ``Democrat,'' his conservative record speaks for itself, even 
though he has only been in office for less than a year.
  As a candidate, he sided with the bondholders and vulture capital 
funds and opposed any debt restructuring for Puerto Rico, saying that 
Puerto Rico should pay its debt in full to Wall Street speculators, in 
spite of massive cuts that that would entail for police, fire, health, 
pensions, roads, and schools.
  He hosted, yes, a Democrat, the GOP Presidential candidate, Ben 
Carson; and the Governor opposes LGBT rights, including same-sex 
marriage, and opposes the teaching of gender equality in the schools.
  Townhall, the uber conservative website, sees a kindred spirit in 
Governor Rossello, the Democrat, praising him for his conservative 
approach to helping bondholders over schoolchildren. And the Governor 
has withheld his criticism of President Trump, which few Democrats are 
able to resist, and for Latino Democrats is darn near impossible unless 
you are just playing the Democratic role to get ahead.
  When confronted with the obvious, that Trump has denigrated Mexicans 
as rapists and murderers, promised to build a wall to keep Latinos out, 
and sneered at Puerto Rico's desire for what Donald Trump called a 
bailout, Rossello responded, saying of the President: ``My view is I 
don't know that he is anti-Latino. Obviously, I have heard some 
derogatory remarks, but I don't know him personally, and it doesn't 
deter me.''
  So instead of spending money to help children whose schools are 
closing, to fix roads that are falling apart, or to pay doctors enough 
to prevent them from leaving Puerto Rico and going to Florida, it seems 
the entire Puerto Rican government is now dedicated to pursuing the 
unlikely chance of statehood.
  It is certainly useful as a distraction from what the Governor and 
his D.C. operatives are actually doing.
  Mr. Speaker, I have said this before: I hope to be buried one day on 
that beautiful island of Puerto Rico. But when I am buried, I hope it 
happens in a free, sovereign nation that has thrown off the yoke of 
colonialism and dependence on an overseas master, just as this country 
did, the United States of America, the country in which I was born.
  I look forward to celebrating the Fourth of July. In the meantime, I 
think it is important to warn my fellow Democrats that they should get 
no more in bed with the statehooders than with any other group of 
rightwing conservatives with an agenda.

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