Puerto Rico Status Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, we have heard a lot about self- determination today, but let's put that to the smell test.

The options that the Democrats are presenting to the Puerto Rican people don't include the most obvious choice, to remain as a commonwealth. So if you prefer the status quo, you are completely out of luck. The Democrats have already decided you are not allowed to vote for that. That is not self-determination. That is rigging an election.

Now, if none of the three options the Democrats have chosen for you gets 50 percent, then there is a runoff, even if the option dropped was the clear second choice of voters. And a narrow, transient majority seems to be most likely, since the November 2020 plebiscite scored just 52.5 percent in favor of statehood, 47.5 percent opposed, with just 53 percent turning out to vote. Completely ignored is the right of all the American people to discuss and decide so momentous and irreversible a question as this.

Statehood would mean that in the next reapportionment, other States will lose a total of four seats in the House of Representatives in order to accommodate the Puerto Rican delegation.

Only about 20 percent of the population is fluent in English, which means that we would be admitting a State whose vast majority is isolated from the national political debate that is central to our democracy.

Nor will statehood solve Puerto Rico's economic problems. Residents would now have to pay all Federal income taxes from which they are currently exempt. The GAO estimates that would cost Puerto Rico 70 percent of its existing manufacturing base. There is not even a CBO estimate of the cost to American taxpayers of admitting a chronically mismanaged and utterly bankrupt State government.

The economy of Puerto Rico is expected to underperform the national economy, which is itself a disaster. For American taxpayers, it would mean a new State that has the lowest per capita income in the country and the largest per capita debt. Its labor participation rate is 40 percent, compared to 62 percent nationally. Forty-three percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Its academic performance would be the worst in the Nation.

So how does it benefit America to admit a State that would be the most indebted, uneducated, poorest, and least employed State in the Nation?

We don't get to consider that question, because under this bill, Congress gets no further say in the matter once Puerto Rico has voted. That makes it a blanket abrogation of the responsibility of Congress to make these decisions in the best interest of all of the people of the United States.

Whichever of the three options is chosen would be automatically enacted without any further debate or decision by Congress. It hands the constitutional authority reserved for the welfare of the entire Nation to the hands of what would be a narrow and transient majority in Puerto Rico.

The only debate in Congress on Puerto Rican statehood is the debate that we are having right now, when the Nation is oblivious to the legislation or its implications. Our constituents will awaken across the country to the realization of a fait accompli that was quickly rushed through the very last days of session with no opportunity for national debate on the implications of making such a profound and permanent change in the fabric of our Nation. This is as cynical as it gets.

If the motion to recommit is adopted, I will introduce an amendment that will require the question to be returned to the House for a full national debate on such a momentous issue and require a two-thirds vote to assure a broad, bipartisan consensus.

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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