average achieve a consensus on this issue the people of puerto rico have demonstrated throughout the past one hundred eleven years that they deeply care about whether they want to remain a commonwealth or become a us state in fact they have voted on whether to remain a territory a state or an independent nation on four separate occasions in the past fifty seven years during the testimony on a charge twenty four ninety nine governor luis fortuna stated my quote the bill provides for a just an impartial process of self determination for puerto rico and in essence this is the heart of the debate is essential that the four million citizens of puerto rico say that the four million citizens of puerto rico believe that any federal simple choice of voting for either statehood or remain a u s territory this is not a new or radical idea in fact the last torrie to become states alaska and hawaii had referendums for instance on june and they can be and often are treated less than equal he compared to residents of the states with respect to federal programs since joining the american family over a century ago the island's residents have never express first time provide the people of puerto rico with the opportunity to be heard on this fundamental question h r twenty four ninety nine authorizes the government to conduct an initial web site voters will be asked whether they wish to montane the current status or to have a different status the rationale for this plebiscite a simple in accordance with the american principle of government by consent of congress the meaningful consent of puerto rico to the political united states the status option entails an agreement between two sovereigns that is not subject to the territorial clause of the constitution the terms of this agreement are subject to negotiation between the parties this definition is consistent with ten democrats and fifty one republicans of the three thousand bills that have been introduced in less than twenty have obtained this level of bipartisan support the legislation sponsored by members  thank you thank you mr chairman i want to commend the president commissioner also for an improved bill i think over nine hundred that we had before us in the previous congress is you know i ended up amending that somewhat as we moved through the committee however i still have some reservations as i met as i said at the hearing that enhanced commonwealth which i considered to be a  process ahead of us i want to just say for the record that i hope that this will not set a stage for how what would be expected from the rest of us as we develop our own process but that would be allowed to set up a different process i don't want this to be a prototype for i just wanted to say that for the record but it is it improved over the last one amendment process today we are following up on the groundwork laid for this particular issue during the last congress when the committee considered in approved a similar measure i strongly believe that when it comes to the territorial possession of the united states we must recognize that there is an inherent right political self determination and i believe that time for puerto rico is now one hundred eleven years have passed since puerto rico was ceded to the u s by spain under the treaty of paris i do not think that it was in to support it puerto rico would always be a territorial possession of this country we are the greatest democracy in the world the world's superpower yet at the same time the congress of the united states has never extended to the citizens of puerto rico a congressionally sanctioned process for them to reassess their political status and i find it difficult to defend we are meeting today to consider a simple proposition that nonetheless elicits complex responses proposition as whether the people with people of puerto rico are satisfied with the status quo in terms of their political status or not i strongly believe that this legislation before us does not does not preordain any particular outcome it takes a fair and balanced approach and it is one which is supported by the duly elected resident commissioner and the governor of puerto rico always been printed only in spanish as a result of some fifty percent of a prophet five hundred thousand residents in english who are effectively disenfranchised from exercising their constitutional right to vote on a puerto rico law and order for balance  the land in puerto rico and the reasoning in this case it would be unconstitutional have elektro about in puerto rico they were printed in spanish only pending m m it confirms to this court case and therefore i have no objection  votes that may occur as a result of the enactment of this legislation at a time when our federal deficit now exceeds one point six trillion dollars and our debt is twelve trillion dollars we simply cannot afford the luxury of having to pay the cost of one or two plebiscite votes in puerto rico under h r twenty four ninety nine it is unclear who will assume these costs which is a dramatic change from legislation that was reported from this committee in the last congress under h r nine hundred the commonwealth paid for the cost of the elections from excise taxes on rum imported into the united states while it is not clear what the elections may cause the library of congress was kind enough to provide me with an associated press article that indicates last year's presidential primary in puerto rico cost the island government about two point five million dollars this is not an insignificant amount of money in addition when we hold federal elections and use our any other of the forty nine states it is the citizens of those states specifically the local counties and not the federal government pays the costs associated with those elections in this instance the elected representatives of puerto rico have sponsored this legislation because they want their constituents to have an opportunity to decide their political status in a federally sanctioned plebiscite well this may be a lot of the federal government has never been in the business of paying for elections and in this particular time it's a bad time to start i would urge passage and and i vote in favor of this amendment which would simply say that the people of puerto rico should pay for this election or this  political status is an issue of fundamental importance the government of puerto rico should be willing to spend money from its own coffers in order to carry out the process and resold the central question of its political future chairman fifty years ago the territories of alaska and hawaii became our nation's fifty to forty ninth and fiftieth state they arrived at that historic moment after their residence went to the polls and overwhelmingly voted what they wanted alaska and hawaii to be quote the residents of alaska voted in a similar plebiscite and by an eighty four percent more majority supported immediate statehood under the terms of h r twenty four ninety nine there is no designated threshold for either proceeding from the first  second or the final result of the united states congress in fact it appears that a simple plurality of fifty percent plus one is enough to end the one hundred eleven one hundred eleven year relationship the commonwealth of puerto rico is had with the united states as you know i'm not a co sponsor of h r twenty four ninety nine and i have expressed the neutrality of having not made a decision one way or the other on how i feel about this issue although i do not allow i do agree state sovereignty is a cornerstone of american political philosophy if a large majority of puerto rican desire statehood then it would be difficult to to oppose their will but in looking back we know that at least four locally state sanctioned have been held in puerto rico we also know that to date the proponents of statehood have never even achieved a simple majority of puerto rican vote when considering the history it seems evident that a large majority regardless of the option does not exist the purpose of my amendment is to allow the will of all puerto rican to be heard and respected under my amendment the status quo will status quo will remain unless two thirds of puerto rican voters get new political status during the second vote the voter will have the option of independence sovereignty in association with the united states or statehood if one of these options fails to achieve a two thirds majority that will be the sense of congress no further legislative action should be taken upon certification of the election result without this is amendment and you may have well may well have a situation where fifty percent of the population of puerto rico or nearly two million people are very unhappy with the result and find themselves having to use whatever influence they have to derail the eventual admission legislation will be brought before congress and then into the courts the election outcome in puerto rico must be clear unambiguous fair and supported by clear majority of residents of the commonwealth and my amendment permitted to express their preference among the non territorial alternatives that the bill provides for each of which would provide a democratic form of government at the national level the reasoning applies manner that a minority of the electorate ultimately prevail just centrally answered the question i was going to ask and with all due respect to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle it seems to me that the way this is laid out is very fair the first question simply asked do you want to maintain the status that we have now or do you want something different if the answer to that is yes then it moves to the second question but most importantly as you just pointed out my question to you was going to be assuming in the second plebiscite there is a majority of vote my question to you is going to be so what then what and your point is well taken that then we don't know where we go from there but many of then it certainly wouldn't be binding that the super majority argument i think is well in advance of where we need to be now it's premature the system the process that's been set out is very fair last thing i want to raise mr chairman is a is a specific question on subsection c it says procedure of section b would only be conducted pursuant to subsection b says what happens as a result of the plebiscite set forth in a maybe staff look at the look at the language there to see if that's of puerto rico why do we need to have a  thirty three percent voted one way thirty three percent voted for another thirty four percent voted the third way thirty four percent would carry the day and i'm not sure that we i mean do we really want to stay where less than fifty percent want to be a state i know the gentleman is very good to have statehood and i appreciate his harvests in that regard but i know that there are a lot of people in puerto rico who would rather be totally independent and have separate countries and maybe have other things and that's my concern so the question i will ask all the members of this of this  germany i just want to associate myself with the remarks of the gentleman from puerto rico having gone through a number of these efforts over the years in the congress and in this in this committee i think the gentleman has structured this legislation considering the context in the history about as fair as you possibly can if we in fact want genuine results from the from the process we've been through this before where a lot of people try to put one side of the scale as we were considering it and i think that  we tried to come under republicans and democrats chairman young chairman chairman miller so there's not a political thing here is not ideological this is the most sensible way of trying to solve what we have tried to do in good faith over population of creole and french speakers living in louisiana at the time the act required louisiana to adopt the language of its government as a condition of statehood unfortunately twenty four ninety nine is introduced does not require puerto rico spanish speaking commonwealth to adopt english is the official language of government operations as statehood is chosen no territory with an official language other than english ever been admitted to the union america the thing that our country together and it's absolutely critical and we see in countries such as canada where you have one province as one official language and have other provinces that have english as official language there is conflict and very eager to not have conflict if indeed puerto rico admitted as a state the third point is that that mom and then say that english  states that argument is not a correct argument because it does not limit people from speaking spanish in your scenario say mr baka we could stay here for an hour and a half and debate the issue of english language has been talked about in this country for years bottom line is as has been pointed out by the gentleman from puerto rico and by mr baka it is certainly premature what strikes me about this argument that i don't understand is why we would be so focused on this issue in any event at this point and as mister as my friend from puerto rico pointed out certainly we haven't had any issues dealing with with problems related to that and so why would we be focused on that now given that we haven't any problems it seems to me we're we're getting our eye off the ball here in terms of this bill and again i believe it's premature and i'll y and if we're going to bring all of us together as a melting pot i think it's absolutely critical for all of us one language we can have different backgrounds we can have different  to heinrich