Tuesday, March 17, 2020

How US Territories, Like Puerto Rico, Obtain Statehood

How US Territories, Like Puerto Rico, Obtain Statehood The process by which U.S. territories attain full statehood is, at best, an inexact art. While Article IV, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution empowers the U.S. Congress to grant statehood, the process for doing so is not specified. Key Takeaways: U.S. Statehood Process The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to grant statehood but does not establish the process for doing so. Congress is free to determine the conditions of statehood on a case-by-case basis.According to the Constitution, a new state cannot be created by splitting or merging existing states unless both the U.S. Congress and the legislatures of the states involved approve.In most past cases, Congress has required that the people of the territory seeking statehood vote in a free referendum election, then petition the U.S. government for statehood. The Constitution merely declares that new states cannot be created by merging or splitting existing states without the approval of both the U.S. Congress and the states legislatures. Otherwise, Congress is given the authority to determine the conditions for statehood. The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States†¦ - U.S. Constitution, Article IV, Section 3, clause 2. Congress typically requires the territory applying for statehood to have a certain minimum population. In addition, Congress requires the territory to provide evidence that a majority of its residents favor statehood. However, Congress is under no constitutional obligation to grant statehood, even in those territories whose population expresses a desire for statehood. The Typical Process Historically, Congress has applied the following general procedure when granting territories statehood: The territory holds a referendum vote to determine the peoples desire for or against statehood.Should a majority vote to seek statehood, the territory petitions the U.S. Congress for statehood.The territory, if it has not already done so, is required to adopt a form of government and constitution that are in compliance with the U.S. Constitution.The U.S. Congress - both House and Senate - pass, by a simple majority vote, a joint resolution accepting the territory as a state.The President of the United States signs the joint resolution and the territory is acknowledged as a U.S. state. The process attaining statehood can literally take decades. For example, consider the case of Puerto Rico and its attempt to become the 51st state. The Puerto Rico Statehood Process Puerto Rico became a United States territory in 1898 and people born in Puerto Rico have automatically been granted full U.S. citizenship since 1917 by an act of Congress. In 1950, the U.S. Congress authorized Puerto Rico to draft a local constitution. In 1951, a constitutional convention was held in Puerto Rico to draft the constitution.In 1952, Puerto Rico ratified its territorial constitution establishing a republican form of government, which was approved by the U.S. Congress as being â€Å"not repugnant† to the U.S. Constitution and the functional equivalent of a valid state constitution. Then things like the Cold War, Vietnam, September 11, 2001, the Wars on Terror, the great recession and lots of politics put Puerto Rico’s statehood petition on Congress’ back burner for over 60 years.   On November 6, 2012, the territorial government of Puerto Rico held a two-question public referendum vote on petitioning for U.S. statehood. The first question asked voters if Puerto Rico should continue to be a U.S. territory. The second question asked voters to choose from among the three possible alternatives to territorial status - statehood, independence, and nationhood in free association with the United States. In the vote count, 61% of the voters chose statehood, while only 54% voted to retain territorial status.In August 2013, a U.S. Senate committee heard testimony on Puerto Rico’s 2012 statehood referendum vote and acknowledged that the majority of the Puerto Rican people had â€Å"expressed their opposition to continuing the current territorial status.†On February 4, 2015, Puerto Rico’s Resident Commissioner in the U.S. House of Representatives Pedro Pierluisi, introduced the Puerto Rico Statehood Admission Process Act (H.R. 727). The bill authorizes Puerto Rico’s State Elections Commission to hold a vote on Puerto Ricos admission into the Union as a state within one year after the Acts enactment. If a majority of the votes cast are for Puerto Ricos admission as a state, the bill requires the president of the United States to issue a proclamation to begin the transition process that will result in Puerto Ricos admission as a state effective January 1, 2021. On June 11, 2017, the people of Puerto Rico voted for U.S. statehood in a nonbinding referendum. Preliminary results showed that almost 500,000 ballots were cast for statehood, more than 7,600 for free association-independence, and almost 6,700 for retaining the current territorial status. Only about 23% of the island’s approximately 2.26 million registered voters cast ballots, leading to statehood opponents to doubt the validity of the result. Puerto Rico’s governor will now select two senators and five representatives to go to Washington, D.C., to ask the U.S. Congress to grant the territory statehood.  Despite the size of the vote in favor of statehood, the extremely low voter turnout may lessen the likelihood that Congress will grant the request.Note: While Puerto Rico’s resident commissioners to the House are allowed to introduce legislation and take part in debates and committee hearings, they are not allowed to actually vote on legislation. Similarly, no n-voting resident commissioners from the other U.S territories of American Samoa, the District of Columbia (a federal district), Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands also serve in the House. So if the U.S. legislative process eventually smiles on the Puerto Rico Statehood Admission Process Act, the entire process of transition from U.S. territory to U.S. state will have taken the Puerto Rican people over 71 years.   While some territories have significantly delayed petitioning for statehood, including Alaska (92 years) and Oklahoma (104 years), no valid petition for statehood has ever been denied by the U.S. Congress. Powers and Duties of All US States Once a territory has been granted statehood, it has all the rights, powers and duties established by the U.S. Constitution. The new state is required to elect delegates to the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.The new state has the right to adopt a state constitution.The new state is required to form legislative, executive, and state judicial branches as necessary to effectively govern the state.The new state is granted all of those governmental powers not reserved to the federal government under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution.

Sunday, March 1, 2020

Five reasons to ignore your grammar gremlins (for now) - Emphasis

Five reasons to ignore your grammar gremlins (for now) Five reasons to ignore your grammar gremlins (for now) Heres the good news: if you’re worried your documents are not as good as they could be, your grammar is probably not the problem. Dont get me wrong. Grammar matters. Of course it does. Getting it wrong can undermine your reputation (though probably not as much as you think – see below). Poor grammar can even completely change the meaning of a sentence. But focusing too much on it could actually be more damaging. Here are five reasons why you should get over your grammar hang-ups. 1. Poor punctuation matters more than grammar.  Colons and commas are vital sign-posts, so it’s important to put them in the right place. And a misplaced apostrophe (or, worse, a missing one) will make it look like you don’t care. On the other hand, I’d argue that no-one is going to get that worked up about whether you end a sentence with a preposition. 2. Grammar (and punctuation) issues usually indicate deeper problems. It’s probably not your imperfect understanding of a set of arcane grammar rules known only by master pedants that’s holding back your writing. It’s far more likely to be structural issues or focusing too much on your own aims rather than your readers’. In fact, worrying too much about your grammar can actually cause deeper problems. That’s because it seriously undermines your confidence, causing you to compensate with overly complex language or sentences. 3. Almost everyone struggles with it. Believe it or not, FTSE 100 directors and new graduates are often united in uncertainty over certain grammar points. Even experienced editors can spend a lifetime picking up the finer details. So waiting until you’ve perfected your grammar knowledge before you write anything is counter-productive – and futile. 4. Perfect grammar does not automatically mean perfect documents. Perfecting your knowledge of grammar will not automatically make you produce good documents, any more than memorising the workshop manual to your shiny new Ford or Volvo will make you a good driver. It’s perfectly possible to be technically perfect yet still produce an impenetrable tome stuffed with turgid professionalese. Focus on your readers’ needs, structure your document well and use the right level of language. Then you stand a very good chance of making a real impact – yes, even if you’ve misplaced a modifier or left a participle dangling helplessly. 5. It’s not too late to fill in the gaps. If English is your first language, you already know 95 per cent of the grammar you’ll ever need. (And if it’s not, take comfort from the fact that your knowledge of technical grammar rules is probably superior to that of most native English speakers, simply because we learn our first language through usage rather than studying grammar.) Native speakers beyond the age of four or five already know which common verbs are irregular. They’d never say, for example, ‘I digged a big hole in the sand’. They know that ‘dig’ becomes ‘dug’ in the past tense. They just don’t know that it’s called the past tense. (Nor, at that age, do they need to.) So the task of filling in the gaps is pretty straightforward. The odds are that the things you’re unsure about are the same ones that other people struggle with. (See point 3, above.) So, take heart. Focus first on what your reader needs to know, then tell them in as straightforward a way as possible. Then – and only then – look up any points of grammar you’re not sure about.