Rafael “Tatito” Hernández proposes the repeal of the draft statutes signed by Wanda Vázquez

Washington DC.- The delegation of the Democratic People’s Party (PPD) in the House of Representatives proposed the repeal of laws 167 and 165 of December 30, 2020 which promote, respectively, the election of six state lobbyists and leave the appeal for another plebiscite to the governor.

“We will exhaust legal remedies before (challenging) them in court”, said Rafael “Tatito” Hernández Montañez, who will be nominated on Monday, at the beginning of the session, as President of the House of Representatives.

The bill presented this afternoon by PPD representatives in the lower house in Puerto Rico also wants the removal of the 2017 law that created the Equality Commission.

On the one hand, Law 167 – which would allow six “special delegates” to be elected to Congress on May 16, whose sole function will be to lobby for statehood – “mixes the prerogatives of a legislator with those of the Executive,” he said. Hernández Montañez.

In addition, the legislator questioned, among other things, the requirement that the law requires these delegates to be fluent in both English and Spanish, which excludes “at least 70% of the population” and the power it has. the government grants it to eliminate an elected official if it does not commit to promoting statehood for the island.

Under federal law, the Washington resident commissioner is required to speak English, but no Puerto Rican government official is required to do so. Law 167 proposes the election of six state lobbyists as special delegates to Congress, four appointed to lobby for the lower house and two in the Senate.

Although the measure was presented today, it must wait until next week, when the new session of the Puerto Rican legislature begins.

Law 165, in turn, leaves it in the hands of the governor Pedro Pierluisi call a new plebiscite. Pierluisi, by executive order, could define the status alternatives to be presented in a consultation and choose when to conduct it.

Laws 165 and 167 were approved in a special by-election session and signed on December 30 last year by then-Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced, in response to the New Progressive Party (PNP )’s November 3 Creole plebiscite in which the state won a 52 , 5% of the vote.

“They knew they had lost control of the Legislative Assembly for four years 2021-2024, turning our system into something similar to a dictatorship.” indicates the PPD legislation in the Chamber.

Hernández Montañez, on the other hand, agreed with the leadership of the Puerto Rican Bar Association to present that group’s project in favor of a Constitutional Statute Assembly.

Meanwhile, Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) lawmakers, Senator María de Lourdes Santiago and Representative Dennis Márquez, have tabled resolutions to create a special commission tasked with recommending legislation leading to a “Decolonization Assembly.”

PPD and PIP status measures would require the approval of Governor Pedro Pierluisi or two-thirds of the support in both houses to circumvent a potential veto. Although PPD has an absolute majority in the House of Representatives, it has a simple majority of 12 out of 27 senators

PNP representative José Aponte ruled out that his colleagues could support a kind of convocation in favor of a status meeting. “There is a democratic mandate for statehood and we will apply this will of our people. This initiative for a status convention is completely excluded “, said Aponte, who was the president of the lower house.