Political Quotes

“I rise today in opposition to this bill. It strongly deviates from the procedures followed by other States to seek statehood, and it leaves numerous questions about the implications of statehood unanswered in this particular case. H.R. 2499 is the wrong way to go about achieving statehood and breaks from the precedents set, as I mentioned, of other States and, most recently, those States that we entered into the Union in the last century, Alaska and Hawaii. Both of these States conducted their own vote on the question of statehood. When a strong majority voted in favor of statehood in each of these cases, it was only then that they went to Congress asking them to respond to that vote. This bill has the process entirely backwards. This bill is a bill asking Puerto Rico if it wants to be a State, not the other way around. This is a dramatic departure from the long-established precedent of how other States sought admission to the Union. This bill has Congress, as a result, blessing statehood before Puerto Rico even votes to express their will.”