That Puerto Rico Thing

Not a lot of people have noticed yet but it appears that Puerto Rico has voted to do two things: one, seek a change in the status quo of their relationship with the United States (54% said yes) and two, of the options they were given if they wanted a change, 61% favored statehood. Early news projecting this last night had them still counting results- but the Boston Herald projects 96% of the precincts are in for the Governor's race and the BBC is picking up on these results too- so I'm going to go out on a limb and say these results hold. (BBC also is saying turnout was 80% down there- which could be significant.)

So what does this all mean?

Well this is where it gets interesting, kids. Puerto Rico is represented in Washington by a non-voting Resident Commissioner and elects its own Governor. It looks like the pro-statehood Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi got re-elected. (Emphasis on 'looks like' all the article I'm reading say that they've still got to wrap up some counting down there.) But the pro-statehood Governor Luis Fortuno appears to have been ousted by Alejandro Garcia Padilla of the Popular Democratic Party by about 14,000 votes. (Again, emphasis on 'appears to have been ousted' that result might change with a recount/more votes coming in.)

It's possible that Padilla, if the results hold might obfuscate, delay or just not recognize the results of the referendum. (Despite what I commented out loud of Facebook last night, the two part nature of the question doesn't make this a binding referendum.) Opponents of the referendum have been grumbling that the two part nature of the question is confusing but I'm not sure that I buy that. To me, it seems clearer: do you want to change what we've got, yes or no? If you do, then do you want statehood, independence, sovereign free association or something else? Basically, depending on the final outcome of the races for Resident Commissioner (which looks pretty final) and Governor (which could also be pretty final depending on how much they've got left to count) we can put further action on the matter into the category of: stay tuned.

But one thing is for sure: Statehood has never put up numbers this big before. Looking as past political status questions (and yes, I used Wikipedia for this. It was just faster and I'm not writing a research paper here) it seems like there's always been some arguments about the definition and wording of the questions (which could be contested here) but 2012 seems to have been a breakthrough for statehood.

Let's say Padilla (I'm assuming Fortuno, if he wins will push forward this) pushes forward with statehood and respects the result. What happens then? Well, the Resident Commissioner would have to petition Congress to pass an Enabling Act, which sets up the new state to write it's own Constitution and lays down any requirements that have to be met before admittance to the Union. (I can't imagine there would be many.) But the whole question is going to depend on Congress and what it wants to do and as Alaska and Hawaii can report, gaining statehood isn't necessarily a short process.

If, IF this gets sent to Congress, I'm anticipating that they'd let Puerto Rico in. Both Democratic and Republican platforms support whatever the people of Puerto Rico want and President Obama has pledged to respect the result. From a purely political standpoint this is a no-brainer for both parties. While I anticipate a certain amount of 'white panic' on the Right if this gets seriously rolling, Republicans took a drubbing last night with the most important voting demographic in the country, the Latino vote. Now while you can't pigeonhole all Latinos, they can't afford to painted as being against this (I don't think) and Democrats will probably be all too eager to roll out the red carpet for Puerto Rico and solidify inroads they've been making in the Latino community.

If after all this, Puerto Rico is admitted to the Union, it's population ranks right behind Oklahoma which would put it's electoral votes in the range of 6-7, depending on how they apportion things in the new state- and 6-7 votes ain't nothing in the electoral landscape.

The bottom line is that the result is hugely significant- a clear majority wanted to change the status quo and a clear majority of that wanted statehood, but there's a long road ahead before we celebrate the admittance of a 51st state to the Union. As I said earlier: stay tuned.