Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory. A territory can become either a state or a nation, so being a territory is not considered to be a permanent situation. The relationship between the U.S. and Puerto Rico 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 Puerto Rico’s 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” has a second definition: it is also used to describe an aspirational arrangement in which Puerto Rico attains varying 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. Some U.S. Senators have referred to “commonwealth” as “the free beer and barbecue option.”
Several Puerto Rican plebiscites have nonetheless included a “commonwealth” option, a choice that is defined differently every time it is offered to voters. For each vote, the “commonwealth” ballot option has given Puerto Rico a changing, 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. These proposals, premised on appealing but inflated promises to voters, did not accurately reflect Puerto Rico’s current status as a U.S. territory, were different from one another, and were later resoundingly 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.
- 60% Commonwealth, defined to include the current territorial status but with national government powers
- 38.9% Statehood
- 0.6% Independence
- 48.6% Commonwealth with autonomy from federal tax laws and greater tax, international trade, and welfare benefits
- 46.3% Statehood
- 4.4% Independence
Within a year after this vote, Puerto Rico’s Legislative Assembly petitioned Congress through a Concurrent Resolution, 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 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.
- .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 who chose the “none of the above” option would have supported the discredited Enhanced Commonwealth concept, but that option was not presented to voters because it was deemed unviable for legal and policy reasons, or, in the words of former Representative Jose Serrano, “a letter to the Three Kings or a letter to Santa Claus.”
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 any legal assurances 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.”
21st Century Plebiscites
As the calendar turned to 2000, the “commonwealth” label continued to loose its shine and credibility as a political status for Puerto Rico. In 2016, the passage of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) further pulled back the curtain on the limited autonomy of “commonwealth.” Rather than calling Puerto Rico a “commonwealth,” the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico started to be increasingly referred to as simply a colony.
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 unusually high support for free association, and with no “commonwealth” option on the ballot, it is believed that many 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.
The 2017 vote offered three options: (1) statehood, (2) independence with or without free association, and (3) the current territorial status. Of the votes cast, 97.18% voted for Statehood, 1.5% for Independence/Free Association, and 1.32% for the Current Territorial Status.
Leading up to this vote, the Department of Justice advised the Puerto Rican government to “make clear that a vote for ‘Free Association’ is a vote for complete and unencumbered independence.”
The Department further cautioned against describing free association in a manner that “may lead voters to think that this choice is an ‘enhanced Commonwealth’ option.” The advisory letter stated that “the reality is that both choices would result in complete and unencumbered independence and both would require an assessment of a variety of issues related to citizenship.” The letter emphasized that “The [Justice] Department and [White House Task Force on Puerto Rico’s Status] have rejected as unconstitutional previous “enhanced Commonwealth” proposals[.]”
Ultimately, although the “Territory” option was listed on the ballot, no definition of a separate enhanced “Commonwealth” was provided. When the enhanced “commonwealth” option was not included on the ballot, some of its supporters chose not to vote at all.
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, and all the remaining votes were for all of the other options combined: independence with or without a free association arrangement, remaining a U.S. territory, or a “commonwealth” however defined.
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 U.S. 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 that governs free association arrangements.
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. “Commonwealth” supporters again objected to the fact that “commonwealth” was not on the ballot. Some supporters again decided not to cast a vote and then made the argument that all blank ballots and non-votes should automatically be attributed to a “commonwealth” option.
This story was updated from a report initially published in 2011.
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What the Puerto Ricans need to do is have an Island wide vote for independence, nothing else. The Island of Puerto Rico and its people were taken by force, and kept by force by the people of the United States of America. The USA’s Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) FBI, terrorized the Puerto Ricans throughout 10’s, 20’s, 30’s and the 40’s of the twentieth century: It’s first elected Governor was a NYC’s, Bronx trained opium addict, likely backed by the USA’s greatest terrorist of the twentieth century, J. Edgar Hoover. The vote for independence, to be fair to all Puerto Ricans, must total 75% of the total eligible voters. If the 75% threshold is met, then the USA’s Government must do it very best to help Puerto Rico’s in its quest for total independence.
However, if the vote is less than the 75% threshold, then the PR government and the USA Government need to find another solution. Puerto Rico’s current status: Unincorporated Territorial, Commonwealth is not the solution.
Richard Francis McDonald, Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Not sure where the 75% threshold came from for statehood approval. If that IS the real number then Puerto Rico will never achieve statehood. I cannot think of any political situation that would require a 75% approval. I would think that a 2/3rds majority would be acceptable. That is the normal majority percentage requirement on important decisions. Some things only require a majority approval but this is by far a more important decision than a simple majority.
Commonwealth or ELA-Estado Libre Asociado is not a constitutional status!
• Territorial Clause (Article 4-undemocratic/outdated)- states: “US Congress shall have the Power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the Territory or other Property that belongs to the US…” *PR is a US Territory under the US Constitution (that only mentions 4 Status–one for: States, Territories, Indian Tribes, & District of Columbia)… *“Commonwealth” or “ELA -Free Associated State”- has NO legal meaning; is not a Constitutional Status. But, a cover-up to confuse/fool People… *Besides, the US Congress is not above the US Constitution to create a new Status or give up its Territorial Clause powers, but, it can allow Local Government; statutory US Citizenship or revoke it under the Territorial Clause…