All Editorials and Op-Ed columns from this morning's Washington Post. All editorials and commentary from Sunday's Washington Post Outlook section. These Republicans have no problem authorizing Puerto Rico's nearly 4 million American citizens either to confirm the current well-worn status known as commonwealth or to strike out on the path to independence. The word has been flung about in status discussions for decades, but its costs and benefits have not been definitively assessed, and the United States has never made a formal commitment to accept Puerto Rico as a state if the island territory asked. This time the president and Congress want to be serious, and as a result some friction is setting in.
Language is only part of the problem, but a large part.
The worldly benefits of speaking English, as distinguished from the traditional comforts of speaking Spanish, are familiar to most Puerto Ricans. But it is very late in the day for Washington to impose a hard English-language emphasis on a place that was not consulted on language or on much else when the United States took it over from Spain in 1898. Another Republican worry is that a state of Puerto Rico would flood Congress with Democratic legislators. As it happens, similar predictions of political tilt in Alaska and Hawaii were confounded by events. Some in the GOP suggest a strong stand on Puerto Rican statehood is the key to winning the crucial Hispanic vote in major states.