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Rick Santorum Announces Candidacy, Revives Memories of Puerto Rico Visit

Rick Santorum has announced that he will run for the Republican nomination for president in 2016.  News sources are responding more with nostalgia than excitement.  Santorum ran for president in 2012 and won 11 primaries,

During the 2012 campaign, Santorum made a gaffe during a visit to Puerto Rico when he stated that “English needs to be the primary language” of Puerto Rico for the U.S. territory to become a state according to federal law.

The statement was viewed as a political stumble and resulted in a severe loss of popularity for Santorum in the U.S. territory, whose residents cannot vote for president but can help select party candidates during the presidential primary season.

There were also two substantive problems with Santorum’s statement:

  • There are no federal laws requiring English to be “the primary language,” or indeed about English usage in states.
  • English is one of Puerto Rico’s official languages.

Defending his statement the following day, Santorum went further and was quoted by ABC as saying of Puerto Rico, “this needs to be a bilingual country, not just a Spanish-speaking country.”

Puerto Rico is not a country.  It is a U.S. territory.

Santorum later claimed that the quote had been used “maliciously.” A few days after the original faux pas, however, he made this statement in an interview with ABC:

There were requirements — yes, there were requirements put on other states when they came into the union that English be the principal language and that it be taught and spoken universally in those states. There’s several states where, as you know, there were other languages spoken in the Southwest, Oklahoma, Hawaii. And so it was a condition of admission to statehood, and that’s simply what I’ve said.

Chances are, Santorum will not bring the issue up again. But what are the facts about the use of English and statehood?

There have been some requirements regarding official language use in the enabling acts of some of the current states.

Louisiana, for example, made French and English the official languages of the territory in 1807, but the Louisiana Enabling Act of 1811 specified that official written documents including laws and official written proceedings be kept “in the language in which written records of judicial and legislative written proceedings of the United States are now published and conducted.” There is no mention of spoken language.

Arizona’s enabling act required that schools be conducted in English and that the members of the legislature should be comfortable enough in English not to require an interpreter for their official duties.

Oklahoma’s enabling act also required the use of English in schools, and Hawaii’s Organic Act required that legislative proceedings be conducted in English.

Regardless of these initial requirements, all of these states have continued to use other languages since they became states. Bilingualism is now common throughout the United States.  There is no federal law requiring the broad use of English in any state, and there are federal laws requiring accommodation for people whose English proficiency is limited.

  • Read our previous post on language, culture and military training by clicking here.
  • Read about the growing percentage of Americans who can speak more than one language by clicking here.

6 thoughts on “Rick Santorum Announces Candidacy, Revives Memories of Puerto Rico Visit”

  1. Rick Satanrum (devil reference on purpose ) knew Puerto Ricans in the end couldn’t vote for him in the general election even if they wanted to.
    Yet he attempted to USE them to score nomination points.
    Whrn it becsme apparent Romney would win,Santorum decided to rally extremist conservative xenophobic attitudes toward Hispanics to his gain.
    He would tell PR to “Speak English” and win “culture war” conservative votes.

    If he gets the nomination, Florida will go Democrat and the Dems will win the white house.

    This republican ISN’T voting for him!!
    However I will vote for CONSERVATIVE USSC/SCUS justices and that means voting for him not for him,rather,for the sake of conservatism.
    And that’s the difference, Republicans in US and Statehood PNP party voters stay home on election day in protest when THEIR guy isn’t nominated.
    DEMOCRATS TURN OUT ANYWAY! THEIR MISSION IS TRANSFORMED AMERICA INTO SOCIALIST UTOPIA OF GOV DEPENDENCY AND ITS DEMOCRAT PARTY DICTATORSHIP.

  2. Sanitarium is wasting his time. There are only 3 real contenders for the GOP nomination: Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Scott Walker … coincidentally all three happen to be Puerto Rico-friendly.

    I agree 100% with your comment about Republicans & PNP voters staying home if “their guy” doesent get the nomination. This is a huge problem and it’s a big factor behind the defeats of Romney and McCain.

    I am really concerned about the upcoming three way showdown between Ricky Rossello, Pedro Pierluisi, and Rivera Schatz.

  3. I don’t like how the GOP field is becoming a circus. Now Lindsay Graham has joined. Whenever he speaks it reminds me of cowboy western movies! Lol

    It does raise the danger of one or two of these guys going “rogue” and running as independent if they aren’t nominated.

    This would repeat the Ross Perot scenario where Hillary or OMalley snwaks into the white House with 49% or less of the vote due to GOP/Independent conservatives splitting their bare electoral majority.

    BTW remember all the democrat talk of abolishing the electoral college? Now Dems love the electoral college since the majority of electoral votes are now blue.

  4. Oh it gets better, sources now report that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and New Jersey Governor Chris Christe are expected to announce their candidacies by the end of the month. The “clown car” has been upgraded to a clown bus. At the rate things are going I might as well run too LOL

    It’s ridiculous, this is becoming a huge joke. The debates will have run for entire days just to accommodate the absurd number of candidates.

    BTW: do you know who is a huge fan of abolishing the Electoral College? None other than Rafael Hernandez Colon

  5. ESTADIDAD JIBARA 100%

    El gobierno federal que se comunique según se comunique… todo el resto que se comounique según siempre se a comunicado.

    Si en Miami en San Antonio en Los Angeles Chicago NYC… etc. etc. se habla Español… adivina q? En Puerto Rico se hablará español…

  6. Republican Zealot 51 applauds the basic thrust of each of the preceding comments — except those of PR4EVA, who insists upon imposing ILLITERATE SPANISH upon an English-language discussion site. There is no shortage of Spanish-language Puerto Rico discussion sites, PR4EVA, so please communicate here in LITERATE ENGLISH instead of ILLITERATE (grammatical gaffes galore) Spanish. As for Rick Santorum and the GOP Presidential nomination for 2016, Zealot 51 is currently supporting the Hon. John Ellis “Jeb” Bush. Nevertheless, Rick S is a sincere and earnest individual — despite his having been HORRIBLY ill-advised regarding his grotesque comments about Puerto Rico during the 2012 campaign.

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