George Miller: “the Committee on Resources of the House of Representatives had an obligation to report to this floor a fair and accurate…”

“the Committee on Resources of the House of Representatives had an obligation to report to this floor a fair and accurate plan for the citizens of Puerto Rico to choose their status. I believe that this committee has met that obligation. Mr. Chairman, the people of Puerto Rico, if this bill is passed, will be given the opportunity by the Congress of the United States under the laws of this Nation to choose their status. They can choose to continue in the commonwealth arrangement, they could choose to become an independent nation, they could choose to become one of the States of the United States of America. Our obligation was to see that when this process went forward to the people of Puerto Rico, that it was a fair process, that it was an accurate process. We had had an earlier plebiscite where the parties wrote their own definitions and the people voted, and the Congress has done nothing because the Congress knew in fact those definitions, whether they were of statehood or of commonwealth, were, in fact, not accurate and would not be supported by the Congress of the United States and did not reflect the laws and the Constitution of this country.”