User:Nizolan/Puerto Rico Elective Governor Act

The Puerto Rico Elective Governor Act or Crawford–Butler Act is a United States federal law passed by the 80th United States Congress in 1947 providing for the popular election of the Governor of Puerto Rico and guaranteeing the full range of constitutional rights to U.S. citizens residing in the territory. Though the Act was largely superseded by the Constitution of Puerto Rico in 1952, it was nonetheless a landmark achievement for Puerto Rican self-government, and its guarantee of Puerto Rican constitutional rights remains in force to the present.

Puerto Rican political institutions before the Act
Civilian American political institutions came into being in Puerto Rico in 1900 with the Foraker Act, which regularized the territory's government after two years of U.S. military rule. The Foraker Act established an elected House of Delegates, but provided for the federal appointment by the President of the Governor of Puerto Rico along with an 11-member Executive Council. In 1917, the Jones–Shafroth Act established a bicameral Legislative Assembly comprising a Senate and House of Representatives. The executive branch of the territory remained free from electoral oversight, however, and until 1946 all of Puerto Rico's appointed governors were non-natives.

First Tydings bill


The first legislative move towards Puerto Rican executive autonomy was made in 1936, in the form of a drive towards full independence by Democratic Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland, then Chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories and Insular Affairs. He was motivated by the assassination on February 23 that year of his friend Elisha Francis Riggs, the police chief of Puerto Rico whom Puerto Rican nationalists had held responsible for the Río Piedras massacre. Tydings had previously been a driving force behind the 1934 Tydings–McDuffie Act that had set the Philippines on the path to independence by 1946 and established the Commonwealth of the Philippines as a transitional entity; soon after Riggs's murder, on April 23, 1936, he introduced a bill setting out similar provisions for Puerto Rico. Under the terms of the bill, Puerto Ricans would vote in an independence referendum in November 1937, and pursuant to a "yes" vote the island would be granted independence after a four-year transitional period.

The bill provoked controversy even among pro-independence Puerto Ricans because it provided for the levying of a 25% tariff on Puerto Rican commodities and products entering the rest of the United States, which would increase by an additional 25 percentage points each subsequent year in the four-year transitional period. This was in contrast to the Tydings–McDuffie Act, which had given the Philippines 20 years for the tariff regime to be phased in. Santiago Iglesias, the Resident Commissioner representing the island in the House of Representatives, stated that the bill amounted to "ask[ing] our great people to commit suicide", while Luis Muñoz Marín compared the bill to the ley de fuga ("law of flight"), by which a prisoner would be allowed to escape only to be shot in the back. Writing in 1958, historian Frank Otto Gattell labeled the 1936 Tydings bill the "act of an angry man"—"there was no statesmanship about it". The bill ultimately died in committee. Nonetheless, an important precedent for Puerto Rican autonomy had been set.

1943 Presidential Commission and second Tydings bill
In 1942, the appointed Governor of Puerto Rico, Rexford Tugwell, privately recommended to President Franklin D. Roosevelt that Puerto Ricans be given the authority to elect their own governor. The following year, Roosevelt established a commission to investigate avenues for reforming the Foraker Act to provide for greater Puerto Rican autonomy. [...] The bill attracted some support, with prominent Republican Senator Robert A. Taft labeling it "not a very long step, but an important step, in the direction of giving the people of Puerto Rico the right of self-government". Although the bill passed the Senate on February 15, 1944, however, it met opposition from Puerto Rican politicians. The bill died in the House Committee on Insular Affairs.

Tydings–Piñero bill
The act was condemned by the pro-independence figures gathered in the Congress for Independence.

Legislative history

 * 1) Amendments by Taft: Presidential authority to appoint Auditor and creation of Coordinator of Federal Agencies (July 3, 1947).
 * 2) Muñoz Marín threw his support behind the bill.

Coordinator of Federal Agencies
The Elective Governor Act established a Coordinator of Federal Agencies.

Rights guarantee
"The rights, privileges, and immunities of citizens of the United States shall be respected in Puerto Rico to the same extent as though Puerto Rico were a State of the Union and subject to the provisions of paragraph 1 of section 2 of article IV of the Constitution of the United States."

- Puerto Rico Elective Governor Act, Section 7

Effects

 * 1) Muñoz Marín took office in 1949.