Statehood for Puerto Rico, Hispanic Vote

Why Tea Partiers Say Throw the Bums Out

By Phyllis Schlafly
Friday, May 7, 2010

Proof that the Tea Partiers and others are on target when they criticize both political parties was supplied by the behavior of the U.S. House on April 29. Demoting all major economic and corruption problems facing our country to the bottom of the agenda, the House devoted a long afternoon and 12 roll-call votes to passing a bill to force U.S. statehood on Puerto Rico.

Of course this ploy had to be Nancy Pelosi’s doing, but she made it bipartisan by getting 39 Republicans to vote with her. They walked like lambs to the slaughter, led by (I’ll tactfully omit the appropriate metaphor) Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA).

Puerto Ricans have voted against statehood in three referenda, most recently in 1998. Congress didn’t get the message and plans to make them vote again.

However, the new vote prescribed in the mischievously named “Democracyâ€