Puerto Rico’s political status will be on the ballot in the general elections

Governor Pedro Pierluisi announced on Monday that the political status of Puerto Rico will be on the ballot for the general elections of November and that, for the first time, the island’s current status as a US territory will not be an option in the non-binding referendum.

Voters on the island of 3.2 million people will choose between statehood, independence or independence with free association, the terms of which would be negotiated over foreign affairs, U.S. citizenship and use of the U.S. dollar.

“In this way, our rights as American citizens are asserted, to demand our self-determination through direct voting without intermediaries, and to require the federal government to repair the grievance that our colonial status represents,” Pierluisi declared.

The governor, leader of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party, will activate a 2020 law that allows the current governor to call a referendum on status.

In 2022, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill aimed at helping Puerto Rico move toward changing its territorial status. The Puerto Rico Status Act, sponsored by Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, would exclude the island’s current territorial status as an option.

That status has lost support since the federal government in 2016 established an unelected fiscal board that has the authority to override local political powers after the island declared bankruptcy.

In September 2023, U.S. Senator Roger Wicker reintroduced the bill with a name similar to Grijalva’s, but including Puerto Rico’s territorial status as an option. Two months later, Senator Martin Heinrich introduced a similar bill.

In the last referendum held in November 2020, the 53% voted in favor of statehood and the 47% against, and only half of registered voters participated in the general election. The November referendum would be the seventh time the island has voted to determine its political relationship with the United States.

“Puerto Rico has the right, and I would say the moral obligation, to continue exerting pressure, reiterating its right to self-determination and demanding that Congress respond satisfactorily to the will of our people.”Pierluisi said in a statement after signing the executive order. “Therefore, whenever there is a need to vote to end the colony, that is what we must do.”

In June, two dozen pro-independence and pro-sovereignty organizations spoke at a session of the United Nations Decolonization Committee on Puerto Rico. The committee has proclaimed Puerto Rico’s right to self-determination and independence on more than 40 occasions.

The governor said statehood would help Puerto Ricans receive the same funding and benefits in Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP and supplemental social security. Puerto Rican voters cannot vote in the U.S. general presidential election, but can participate in the presidential primaries.