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Page Number: 47

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FINANCIAL OVERSIGHT AND MANAGEMENT BD. FOR 
PUERTO RICO v. AURELIUS INVESTMENT, LLC 
SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring in judgment 

the right of the people to choose their own officers for gov-
ernmental administration, and pass their own laws in vir-
tue of the legislative power reposed in representative bod-
ies,  whose  legitimate  acts  may  be  said  to  be  those  of  the 
people themselves.”  In re Duncan, 139 U. S. 449, 461 (1891) 
(discussing the republican governments of the States); see 
also  Pacific  States  Telephone  &  Telegraph  Co.  v.  Oregon, 
223 U. S. 118, 149 (1912) (same).

Thus, whatever authority the Federal Government exer-
cised to select territorial officers for Puerto Rico before Con-
gress  recognized  Puerto  Rico’s  republican  form  of  govern-
ment, the authority “to choose [Puerto Rico’s] own officers
for  governmental  administration”  now  seems  to  belong  to 
the people of Puerto Rico.  Duncan, 139 U. S., at 461.  In-
deed, however directly responsible the Federal Government 
was  for  Puerto  Rico’s  local  affairs  before  Public  Law  600, 
those matters might be said to “now procee[d]” in the first
instance “from the Puerto Rico Constitution as ‘ordain[ed]
and establish[ed]’ by ‘the people.’ ”  Cf. Sánchez Valle, 579 
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 15) (quoting P. R. Const., Preamble) 
(acknowledging “that the Commonwealth’s power to enact 
and enforce criminal law now proceeds . . . from the Puerto 
Rico Constitution,” “mak[ing] the Puerto Rican populace . . . 
the most immediate source of such authority”).

The  developments  of  the  early  1950s  were  not  merely
symbolic  either;  this  Court  has  recognized  that  the  para-
digm shift in relations between Puerto Rico and the Federal
Government carried legal consequences.  In Calero-Toledo, 
for  instance,  this  Court  held  that  the  “enactments  of  the 
Commonwealth  of  Puerto  Rico”  were  “ ‘State  statute[s]’ ” 
within the meaning of a federal law requiring a three-judge 
court panel to consider any action seeking to enjoin a “‘State 
statute.’ ”  416 U. S., at 675–676.  The Court reasoned that 
Puerto Rico was entitled to similar treatment as the States 
under the federal law, due to “significant changes in Puerto 
Rico’s governmental structure” in the early 1950s.  See id.,