Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1334_8m58.pdf
Page Number: 40

Cite as:  590 U. S. ____ (2020) 

3 

SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring in judgment 

establishing  a  civil  government  exercising  significant  au-
thority  over  Puerto  Rico’s  internal  territorial  affairs.    Or-
ganic Act of 1900, ch. 191, 31 Stat. 77.  Over time, Congress
put in place incremental measures of autonomy, such as by 
granting  U. S.  citizenship  to  the  island’s  inhabitants  in 
1917 and providing for the popular election of certain terri-
torial officials the same year.  See Sánchez Valle, 579 U. S., 
at ___–___ (slip op., at 2–3); Organic Act of 1917, ch. 145, 39 
Stat. 951.  Yet throughout the early years of Puerto Rico’s 
territorial  status,  “Congress  retained  major  elements  of 
sovereignty,” and “[i]n cases of conflict, Congressional stat-
ute, not Puerto Rico law, would apply no matter how local 
the  subject.”  Cordova  &  Simonpietri  Ins.  Agency  Inc.  v. 
Chase Manhattan Bank N. A., 649 F. 2d 36, 39 (CA1 1981) 
(Breyer, J., for the court). 

By 1950, however, international and local “pressures for
greater autonomy,” Calero-Toledo v. Pearson Yacht Leasing 
Co., 416 U. S. 663, 671 (1974), prompted Congress to pass 
Public Law 600, 64 Stat. 319, a measure “enabl[ing] Puerto
Rico to embark on the project of constitutional self-govern-
ance,”  Sánchez  Valle,  579  U. S.,  at  ___  (slip  op.,  at  3).
“ ‘[R]ecognizing’ ”  and  “affirm[ing]  the  ‘principle  of  govern-
ment by consent,’ ” Public Law 600 “offered the Puerto Ri-
can public a ‘compact,’ under which they could ‘organize a
government pursuant to a constitution of their own adop-
tion.’ ”  Id., at ___, ___ (slip op., at 3, 16) (quoting Act of July 
3, 1950, §1, 64 Stat. 319); see also 579 U. S., at ___ (slip op.,
at 3) (Public Law 600 “[d]escrib[ed] itself as ‘in the nature
of a compact’ ” (quoting §1, 64 Stat. 319)).  Under the terms 
of the compact, Public Law 600 itself was submitted to the 
people of Puerto Rico, who voted to approve the law through 
a popular referendum.  See Leibowitz, The Applicability of
Federal Law to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, 56 Geo. 
L. J. 219, 222–223 (1967).  Delegates were then elected to a 
constitutional convention to draft  a constitution, and in a 
special referendum, the draft constitution was submitted to