Bill Summary – FastDemocracy

SECOND REGULAR SESSION
                     HOUSE CONCURRENT
                      RESOLUTION NO. 38
                             102ND GENERAL ASSEMBLY
                       INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVE BLAND MANLOVE.
    5214H.01I                                                       DANA RADEMAN MILLER, Chief Clerk



           WHEREAS, the United States acquired Puerto Rico by military victory over Spain in
 2 the Spanish-American War in 1898 and designated it as a territory; and
 3
 4         WHEREAS, citizenship was not granted to the people of Puerto Rico until 1917
 5 under the Jones-Shafroth Act; and
 6
 7         WHEREAS, Congress did not allow the formation of the Commonwealth of Puerto
 8 Rico with its own governing constitution until 1952; and
 9
10         WHEREAS, the people of Puerto Rico are not afforded representation in Congress or
11 the right to vote in presidential elections; and
12
13         WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly confirmed that the
14 people of Puerto Rico are subject to federal laws but lack many fundamental constitutional
15 rights afforded to other citizens of the United States and, as described by Tom C.W. Lin in his
16 article Americans, Almost and Forgotten, 107 CALIF. L. REV. 1249 (2019), the Court has
17 shown no inclination to overrule its longstanding Insular Cases, that condition constitutional
18 rights in unincorporated territories upon Congressional passage of federal laws; and
19
20         WHEREAS, the doctrines espoused in the Insular Cases are subject to longstanding
21 and widespread legal critique as anachronistic and racist; and
22
23         WHEREAS, natural disasters such as Hurricane Maria have given rise to great
24 hardship on the island of Puerto Rico in recent years; and
25
26         WHEREAS, the people of Puerto Rico have favored joining the United States as a
27 state instead of remaining as a territory or becoming an independent nation in several
HCR 38                                              2

28   referendums, including a referendum in 2020 in which 52.34% of voters favored the
29   admission of Puerto Rico as a state; and
30
31           WHEREAS, the Congress of the United States has power, under Section 3, Article IV
32   of the Constitution of the United States, to authorize the admission of existing territories such
33   as Puerto Rico as new states upon the passage of a federal law:
34
35          NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the members of the House of
36   Representatives of the One Hundred Second General Assembly, Second Regular Session, the
37   Senate concurring therein, hereby urge the Congress of the United States to authorize the
38   admission of Puerto Rico as the fifty-first state of the United States; and
39
40          BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Chief Clerk of the Missouri House of
41   Representatives be instructed to prepare a properly inscribed copy of this resolution for House
42   Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the members of the Missouri
43   congressional delegation, and the legislatures of each state.
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