Why Puerto Rico’s statehood referendum was a ploy for Democrat seats in Congress

Two weeks ago, at President-elect Donald Trump’s now infamous campaign rally in Madison Square Garden, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made a controversial joke calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”

Democrats seized upon the barb as evidence that Hinchcliffe, and by extension Trump, was racist against Puerto Ricans. A compliant press ran with the story.  

Meanwhile, the real assault on Puerto Rico was coming from Democrats themselves.

In 2022, House Democrats passed the Puerto Rico Status Act, which called for a rigged referendum on statehood that mysteriously omitted the option of remaining a commonwealth.

The House bill was then adopted by pro-statehood Governor Pedro Pierluisi as the template for the nonbinding referendum held on the island last week.

With its main competition off the menu, the statehood option won 56.9% of the vote. 

While Puerto Rico’s pro-statehood party (PNP) declared victory, much of the island saw the result as a sham.

Pablo José Hernández Rivera, Puerto Rico’s newly elected Resident Commissioner, who holds a nonvoting seat in the House of Representatives, did not recognize the validity of the referendum “because it did not include the option of maintaining and improving the Commonwealth.” 

Every other major political party on the island had instructed their members to boycott the vote.

As a result, more than 165,000 Puerto Ricans left the ballot blank, and almost 13,000 damaged the ballots in protest.

Adjusting for blank and damaged ballots, statehood’s share of the vote declined to just 47.6%. 

The motive behind this scheme was as transparent as it was unethical: Democrats want to make Puerto Rico a state because they believe it would add Democrats to the Senate, the House, and the Electoral College.

(The fact that 73% of the island’s voters went for Kamala Harris in their symbolic Presidential election lends credence to that theory.)

House Democrats, it seems, are trying to manufacture a pro-statehood consensus so that someday, when they have control over both Houses of Congress and the White House, they can claim a popular mandate to make Puerto Rico the 51st state. 

The biggest threat to this plan, besides Republican opposition, is the will of the Puerto Rican people, who have voted to remain a commonwealth several times in the past.

So this time around, Democrats opted to remove the commonwealth option from the ballot, effectively guaranteeing that statehood would win. 

Pro-commonwealth advocates worry that Puerto Rico’s distinct cultural identity — including its use of the Spanish language in most affairs — would disappear if it became a state.

Pro-statehood advocates argue that the island would benefit economically from the voting rights, congressional representation, and expanded federal welfare benefits that come with statehood.

But rather than create a consensus for statehood through traditional means of persuasion and activism, Democrats have resorted to the age-old strategy of dictators: eliminate the competition. 

As with much progressive insanity, this scheme has been justified in the name of “decolonization.”

The argument is that maintaining the commonwealth status quo is inherently colonial, so it is safe to assume, without asking, that Puerto Ricans would reject it — despite having voted for it several times in the past. 

What little coverage last week’s sham referendum has received in mainstream media has uncritically accepted the statehood victory — and Democrats have jumped on the “decolonization” bandwagon.

Time magazine, for instance, celebrated the fact that Puerto Ricans can now “express their desire for decolonization,” allowing voters to choose between “non-colonial” options.

None of the media, however, noted that the referendum omitted the one option that threatened Democrats’ self-interest. 

The Department of Justice has made clear that it will only endorse referendums that present Puerto Ricans with all available options, including remaining a Commonwealth.

The DOJ has objected to two anti-commonwealth bills introduced in 2021, one by Reps. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and the other by Rep. Darren Soto (D-Fla).

Neither of these bills passed the House.

Ultimately, it was the Puerto Rico Status Act, introduced by Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) in 2022, that became the template for last week’s referendum. 

If Trump’s strong showing in Florida’s heavily Puerto Rican Osceola County— along with its Pennsylvania counterparts — demonstrates anything, it’s that Puerto Ricans can take a joke, even a tasteless one.

What they cannot take — or at least should not take — are underhanded attempts to change the status of their island without their consent.  

Coleman Hughes is a contributor at The Free Press.