Dan Burton: “First of all let me point out to my colleague from California, the people of Puerto Rico are citizens of the United…”

“First of all let me point out to my colleague from California, the people of Puerto Rico are citizens of the United States. They already are citizens. He says if they want a bite of the American dream. They already are Americans. The only problem is they are Americans without representation. They do not have any Congressmen. They do not have any Senators. They do not have any representation in this body. Yet they are American citizens. They are like orphans out in a storm walking around saying, ``Where are my parents?'' It does not make any sense. This plebiscite is an advisory plebiscite, I will say to my colleague from California. This is an advisory plebiscite. What is he afraid of? All we are asking for is an opinion from the people of Puerto Rico on what they want. If they come back and only 51 percent say that they want statehood or they want commonwealth, we decide in this body whether or not we want to proceed any further. I think if it was that close, we probably would not. But let us say they come back and that 70 percent want statehood and only 10 percent or 20 percent want commonwealth. At that point I think that we as a body ought to make that determination. But make no mistake about it, these are American citizens without representation in the Congress of the United States, and that is wrong.”