Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory. A territory can become either a state or a nation, so it is not considered to be a permanent relationship with the U.S. The relationship between the U.S. and Puerto Rico – and the possible future relationship between the two entities – is often referred to as Puerto Rico’s “political status.”
Puerto Rico has now held seven island-wide referenda – called plebiscites – to give voters a chance to choose their permanent political status. This sounds straightforward, but confusion and contention often arise over exactly what is promised to voters under each option on their ballots.
For example, since the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico is informally called a “Commonwealth,” sometimes the choice of “commonwealth” has been included on plebiscite ballots. However, the term “commonwealth” is also come to be used to describe an aspirational arrangement in which Puerto Rico attains the independent powers of a foreign nation while gaining the protections and benefits of statehood. Such arrangements have been determined to be unconstitutional and unviable based on established U.S. law and policy.
Several Puerto Rican plebiscites have nonetheless included a “commonwealth” option, a choice that is defined differently each time it is offered to voters. Each time, the “commonwealth” ballot option has given Puerto Rico a fantastical package of rights that exceed those of a U.S. territory (as well as the rights of U.S. states and foreign countries). Other plebiscites have been criticized because – in recognition of the basic problems inherent in a “commonwealth” option – the choice was left off the ballot altogether.
20th century plebiscites
Three referenda held in the 20th century to provide Puerto Ricans with self determination were inconclusive due to confusion over “commonwealth” proposals that were presented as legitimate and appealing to voters. These proposals did not accurately reflect Puerto Rico’s current status as a U.S. territory, were different from one another, and were later determined by Federal officials to be unviable and Constitutionally problematic choices.
The list below summarizes the three status plebiscites that were held in Puerto Rico in the 20th century, and their outcomes.
July 23, 1967
- 60% Commonwealth, defined to include the current territorial status but with some national government powers
- 38.9% Statehood
- 0.6% Independence
November 14, 1993
- 48.6% Commonwealth with autonomy from federal tax laws, and greater tax, international trade, and social programs benefits
- 46.3% Statehood
- 4.4% Independence
Within a year after this vote, Puerto Rico’s Legislative Assembly petitioned Congress to either: (1) implement the commonwealth status option as defined on the 1993 ballot, or (2) adopt a federal measure to clarify the specific status alternatives Congress is actually willing to consider. Congressional committee leaders and the Clinton White House determined that the “Commonwealth” proposal could not be implemented for constitutional and policy reasons and because it had not been supported by a majority vote.
In 1997, the Puerto Rican Legislative Assembly again petitioned Congress but with a more direct request: to pass a federal referendum law clarifying the possible terms by which Puerto Rico could achieve a non-territory status. The House passed such a bill (H.R. 856) on March 4, 1998. This legislation would have provided the people of Puerto Rico with a choice among the established, federally recognized options of self determination: the current territorial status, statehood, independence, and sovereign nationhood with a Compact of Free Association (COFA), like the U.S. has with three Pacific Island independent nations. The House bill died in the U.S. Senate, and it never became law.
December 13, 1998
- .06% Current Territory Status
- .1% Free association
- 2.5% Independence
- 46.5% Statehood
- 50.3% None of the Above
Click here to access a chart prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) that summarizes these results.
It is believed that many voters for the “none of the above” option supported the discredited Enhanced Commonwealth concept that election officials decided should not be presented to voters as a credible option.
After this plebiscite, President Clinton established a task force to clearly define Puerto Rico’s options for its voters and to advise on a plebiscite process. The task force issued reports in 2005, 2007 and 2011. The issue of the fate of U.S. citizenship in a new nation of Puerto Rico was addressed in each, as this subject is particularly important to voters.
The 2005 report stated that “The general rule is that citizenship follows sovereignty. So if Puerto Rico were to become an independent sovereign nation, those who chose to become citizens of it or had U.S. citizenship only by statute would cease to be citizens of the United States, unless a different rule were prescribed by legislation or treaty, much as citizens of the Philippines lost their status as U.S. nationals once the Philippines became independent.”
The 2007 report concluded that “[i]f Puerto Rico is to become an independent nation, then, while Congress may well have the power to provide…that persons born in Puerto Rico in the future shall acquire United States citizenship, we think Congress could also change that rule and provide that, in the future, birth in Puerto Rico shall no longer be a basis for United States citizenship.”
The 2011 report took an aspirational tone, hoping that U.S. citizenship could be preserved in a new nation of Puerto Rico but not offering and legal conclusions and observing that “[a]ny status option that could conceivably result in the loss of U.S. citizenship by current U.S. citizen residents of Puerto Rico would, it seems, be viewed with hostility by the vast majority of Puerto Ricans.”
The Meaning of “Commonwealth”
21st century plebiscites
November 6, 2012
The 2012 vote included two questions. The first question asked voters whether they wanted to keep Puerto Rico’s “present form of territorial status.” 54% of voters said no to that, while 46% said yes. A majority of voters rejected the status quo.
The second question asked voters — regardless of their answer to the first question — to choose a non-territorial status. 61.3% of the voters chose statehood, 33.2% chose free association. and 5.5% voted for independence. Given the surprisingly high showing for free association, and with no “commonwealth” option on the ballot, it is possible that voters chose the free association option believing they were voting for a type of “commonwealth.” This theory is especially compelling because Puerto Rico’s 1952 Constitution – called the “Commonwealth of Puerto Rico” in English – calls Puerto Rico an “Estado Libre Asociado” in Spanish, literally a “Freely Associated State.” Even if, as it is believed, some of the voters chose free association believing it was an “enhanced commonwealth” option, the majority for statehood was clear.
June 11, 2017
The 2017 vote offered three options: (1) statehood, (2) independence with or without free association, and (3) the current territorial status. The Department of Justice asked that both forms of independence be put together to avoid confusion. Of the votes cast, 97.18% voted for Statehood, 1.5% for Independence/Free Association, and 1.32% for the Current Territorial Status.
“Commonwealth” leaders were not able to provide election officials with a credible defined “commonwealth” choice and instructed supporters to stay home in protest.
November 3, 2020
In recognition of criticisms that the 2012 and 2017 votes for statehood had been inconclusive because of the way the options were presented, the 2020 vote followed the clear cut examples of Alaska and Hawaii and offered a straight up or down vote on statehood. 52.52% of votes said Yes to statehood, again a majority.
November 5, 2024
The ballot for this vote was modeled on the choices contained in the Puerto Rico Status Act, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 2022 but was never cleared by the Senate. Unlike 1998, the independence and free association options were listed as distinct. The three choices were independence, statehood, and free association. “Commonwealth” was not included, and “sovereign free association” was defined in ways that took on elements of an enhanced “commonwealth,” with ongoing U.S. citizenship in a sovereign nation, but no mention of the U.S. military authority governing the arrangement.
Statehood won the 2024 referendum with 58.61% of the votes. Sovereign free association received 29.57% of the votes, and Independence with no free association arrangement received 11.82% of the votes. Statehood once again had a majority. The “commonwealth” party objected to the fact that “commonwealth” was not on the ballot, and again made the argument that any blank ballots and non-votes should automatically be attributed to “commonwealth.”
This story was updated from a report initially published in March of 2011.
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