And Puerto Rico Makes 51?
REES, MATTHEW
And Puerto Rico Makes 51? By Matthew Rees The symbolism couldn't have been worse: At a March 3 press conference devoted to a House bill on Puerto Rico's future, a reporter asked whether the...
...Even Rep...
...Rep...
...The impression that the Young bill was being driven as much by lobbyists as by genuine concerns about Puerto Rico's relationship to the United States alienated many Republicans...
...Paul Coverdell, a Republican from Georgia, has threatened a filibuster if the bill is scheduled for a vote, and others would likely join him...
...But skeptics have noted there's one reason that Lott might want to press Puerto Rico's case: If "The Star of the Caribbean" became a state, Mississippi would no longer bear the dubious distinction of being the poorest state in the union...
...The Puerto Rico bill was the culmination of many Matthew Rees is a staff writer for The Weekly Standard...
...Among those peddling the idea that support for the Puerto Rican referendum would impress Hispanic voters were two of the GOP's leading consultants: Frank Luntz and Ralph Reed...
...But GOP leaders balked when Young urged that the bill be scheduled for a vote by the full House...
...Puerto Rico's non-voting House representative, Carlos Romero-Barcelo, did the same...
...All the while, English-only reporters were growing fidgety over their inability to understand...
...Puerto Rico was under discussion in the first place only because Newt Gingrich had scheduled a vote on Young's bill, in part because the speaker had become convinced that this was a way to lure Hispanics to the GOP In the end, however, all but 43 Republicans voted against the bill on March 4. For one thing, they feared that Puerto Rico would become America's 51st state...
...It would have been fine to bring this up as part of a larger agenda," said Rep...
...By Matthew Rees The symbolism couldn't have been worse: At a March 3 press conference devoted to a House bill on Puerto Rico's future, a reporter asked whether the congressmen could give some of their answers in Spanish, for the benefit of the Spanish-language media...
...The press conference underscored the Republican party's clumsy efforts to woo Hispanic voters...
...But the speaker was told by his leadership colleagues that he had made a pledge to bring up the bill and should stick to his word...
...Charles Canady, also an energetic conservative, echoed Mcintosh: "To single this out for action when we're not doing much else sends a message that this is a priority...
...It defines your entire agenda...
...As his colleagues droned on, Young left no doubt that he wanted the speechifying to end as quickly as possible...
...Congressional aides said it was one of the most energetic and expensive lobbying campaigns undertaken since Republicans won control of Congress in 1994...
...Last May, the Alaskan twisted arms to deliver a 44-1 committee vote in favor of his proposal...
...Similarly, the Republican National Committee took no position on the matter, and one of the House GOP's research offices released a fact sheet on the bill that carefully danced around the question of whether to support it...
...The amendment was defeated, and a softer English-language requirement was passed in its place...
...Gerald Solomon, the Rules Committee chairman, put forward an amendment requiring that English be enshrined as Puerto Rico's official language before the island could be admitted as a state...
...Yet the bill's opponents, and even a few supporters, noted that Luntz was hardly an impartial observer, citing his status as a paid consultant for the governor of Puerto Rico...
...But without such an agenda, doing this is like Clinton doing gays in the military during his first days as president...
...His relentlessness paid off, as Gingrich agreed last year that a vote would be held sometime in 1998...
...On the day of the vote itself, the Puerto Rican government had a special 20-page advertising section inserted into the paper, designed to win favor for Young's bill...
...Trent Lott of Mississippi, the Senate majority leader, hasn't expressed much enthusiasm for the bill, and it may not see the light of day this year...
...Young is the chief sponsor of the bill, which would allow Puerto Rico to hold a nonbinding referendum on whether to remain a territory, apply for statehood, or declare independence...
...years' work by Young, chairman of the House Resources Committee...
...President Clinton has signaled his support for the bill, but one considerable obstacle remains: the Senate...
...Patrick Kennedy gave a short statement in tortured gringo Spanish, eliciting chuckles from the heavily bilingual crowd...
...Nearly all the major Washington lobbyists were involved, as could be seen in the pages of the Washington Times...
...The divisions within the Republican ranks were such that while Gingrich was one of the bill's cospon-sors, he barely lifted a finger to rally support for it...
...In the days leading up to the vote, the conservative daily was flooded with full-page ads from an array of interest groups...
...The bill still passed—by a single vote—but it will prove an empty victory: The Senate isn't going to act anytime soon, Hispanics are no more inclined to support Republicans, and the whole affair renewed charges from some House Republicans that Gingrich and the rest of the GOP leadership have no agenda other than that which will please lobbyists and pollsters...
...And Alaska Republican Don Young was plainly irritated, checking his watch and pacing nervously...
...With still other Republicans, like conservative representative Dan Burton, supporting the measure, Gingrich tried to delay consideration of the vote...
...Luntz was a more controversial figure, walking the halls of Congress and identified as having influenced Gingrich's thinking on the subject...
...Jose Serrano, a Puerto Rican-born Democrat who up to that point had mostly stayed mum, proceeded to deliver a lengthy speech, all of it in Spanish...
...Rep...
...David Mcintosh, an Indiana conservative...
...Luntz's 222-page communications manifesto recommends a vote on Puerto Rican statehood as a way to win Hispanics...
...Once the vote was scheduled, a massive advocacy campaign was undertaken by supporters and opponents of the measure alike...
...Dana Rohrabacher, a former Reagan speech-writer, employed an even more clever strategy to tap into language-related fears about Puerto Rico: He distributed a series of letters to his colleagues printed in English and Spanish, spelling out his objections to the Young bill...
...But once a vote was scheduled, a few Republicans started noisily opposing the measure...
...But the more frequently heard complaint concerned the apparent dithering of House GOP leaders...
...Young then waged a furious lobbying campaign, buttonholing Republican House leaders at every opportunity...
...While Reed, the former executive director of the Christian Coalition, was out of town the day of the vote, his endorsement of the proposal was featured in advertising campaigns...
Vol. 3 • March 1998 • No. 26
