The House of Representatives today, Tuesday, vigorously approved Bill 21 that would repeal Law 167-2020, allowing a special election to elect six delegates to go to federal Congress to apply for the state of Puerto Rico.
The measure also deletes Law 165-2020 and Law 30-2017, which establish the Equality Commission to promote the results of the June 2017 plebiscite, in which the state achieved 97% with 502,801 votes.
With the exception of the New Progressive Party (PNP) delegation to the House, the rest of the political parties have spoken out in favor of the measure during their debates.
The law permitting a special election and electing the delegates was passed at the end of the last extraordinary session, after the PNP lost the majority of the votes in the legislature.
The representative of the Puerto Rican Independence Party, Denis MarquezDuring his time to debate, he expressed the need to address Puerto Rico’s colonial state.
“It is the responsibility of this Legislative Assembly to be present once and for all so that the mistake of not addressing the problem does not happen. Because immobility is the most obvious manifestation of the cancer of colonialism,” said the pro- independence representative.
Meanwhile, the representative is Lissie Burgos Muñiz, of the Project Dignity party, questioned the need to incur additional costs without the certainty that they would yield favorable results for Puerto Rico during the fiscal crisis facing the island.
“It is very difficult for the residents of Puerto Rico to bear these costs without the guarantee of a successful outcome that is consistent with the goals of both laws,” he said.
The representative of the Movimiento Victoria Ciudadana party for his part, Jose Bernardo Márquez Reyes, identifying himself as a statesman, argued during his debate that while the result of the past plebiscite favored the state, the repealed measures do not represent good use of public funds.
“There are people, like this server, who, while we agree to confront the United States once and for all, we believe the only way to do this effectively would be through a coordinated strategy that encompasses the various decolonization flows. , ”he argued.
In contrast, the PNP minority spokesman in the Senate, Carlos “Johnny” Méndez, said during his debate that the adoption of this measure silenced “the democratic will of a Puerto Rican people.”
“Today you are adopting this measure to defeat the message of the majority of the Puerto Rican people,” he said.