Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1334_8m58.pdf
Page Number: 46.0

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

9 

SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring in judgment 

grave doubts as to whether the Board members are territo-
rial officers not subject to the Appointments Clause.  When 
Puerto Rico and Congress entered into a compact and rati-
fied a constitution of Puerto Rico’s adoption, Congress ex-
plicitly  left  the  authority  to  choose  Puerto  Rico’s  govern-
mental officers to the people of Puerto Rico.  That turn of 
events  seems  to  give  to  Puerto  Rico,  through  a  voluntary
concession by the Federal Government, the exclusive right
to establish Puerto Rico’s own territorial officers. 

No less than the bedrock principles of government upon
which  this  Nation  was  founded  ground  this  proposition. 
When the Framers resolved to build this Nation on a repub-
lican form of government, they understood that the Ameri-
can people would have the authority to select their own gov-
ernmental officers.  See, e.g., The Federalist No. 39, at 251 
(J. Madison) (“[W]e may define a republic to be . . . a gov-
ernment which derives all its powers directly or indirectly 
from  the  great  body  of  the  people”);  A.  Amar,  America’s 
Constitution: A Biography 278–279 (2005) (“[T]he general 
understanding  of  republicanism  across  America”  at  the 
founding embraced a concept of government “in which ‘the
people are sovereign’; in which ‘the people are consequently 
the  fountain  of  all  power’;  in  which  ‘all  authority  should 
flow  from  the  people’ ”).  Core  to  the  1950s  “compact”  be-
tween  the  Federal  Government  and  Puerto  Rico  was  that 
Puerto Rico’s eventual constitution “shall provide a repub-
lican form of government.”  §2, 64 Stat. 319 (codified in 48 
U. S. C. §731c).  Thus, “resonant of American founding prin-
ciples,”  the Puerto  Rico  Constitution  set  forth  a  tripartite 
government  “ ‘republican  in  form’  and  ‘subordinate  to  the 
sovereignty of the people of Puerto Rico.’ ”  Sánchez Valle, 
579 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 4) (quoting P. R. Const., Art. I, 
§2); see also Torres v. Puerto Rico, 442 U. S. 465, 470 (1979).
“[T]he  distinguishing  feature”  of  such  “republican  form  of 
government,” this Court has recognized over and again, “is