Decolonization Models for America’s Last Colony: Puerto Rico

The Most Exclusive Club in the World

202 The Most Exclusive Club in the World August 27, 2009 The US Senate is the most exclusive club in the world. The vice president of the United States presides over this powerful legislative body, which is composed of two senators from each state. In the beginning, senators were appointed by state legislatures, not elected by popular vote. The Founding Fathers did not want the Senate to be a populist body. It was not until 1913 that senators came to be elected by direct popular vote for six-year terms, staggered so that the members of the Senate would not change all at once in an election. They are the “princes” of American democracy, an elite group. For this reason, only senators have the power to approve treaties and to confirm appointments to the cabinet as well as of generals, admirals, ambassadors, and all public prosecutors and federal judges, including justices of the Supreme Court. It is they who pass judgment on the president in the case of an impeachment. The Senate is not a good example of representative democracy, for each senator’s vote has the same weight as that of any other senator. In other words, the two senators from Wyoming, who represent a population of 533,000, have the same voting power as the two senators from California , who represent 37 million people. The House of Representatives is a better example of representative democracy because the number of members who represent a state is proportional to the state’s population. But that body’s powers are much more The Most Exclusive Club in the World  203 limited. The fact that all representatives must be elected every two years underscores their limited power. It is in the House of Representatives that representatives of unincorporated territories such as Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Marianas have a voice. In the Senate, these territories have no presence at all. The entry of a state into the world’s most exclusive club is by invitation only, but with the aggravating circumstance that each new member dilutes the current members’ power. The desire to belong to the club is not a factor in being invited; what counts is whether new entrants serve the club members’ interest. The invitation is achieved by turning an incorporated territory into a state. There must be compelling reasons for the club’s members to accept the dilution of their power by new member states. In the beginning, expansionist strategy consisted of acquiring territories from the Atlantic to the Pacific and in Mexico north of the Río Grande. These incorporated territories were subsequently invited to join as states, and their senators were incorporated into the exclusive club. The new senators contributed the territories desired by the rest of the club’s members. The incorporated territories of Alaska and Hawaii, with their limited populations and location outside the continental United States, were not [originally] welcomed into the exclusive club that is the Senate. Not until the Cold War spread from Europe into Asia in the aftermath of the Korean War did the Senate accept statehood for Alaska, in 1959, after becoming aware of the danger of its close proximity to the easternmost part of the Soviet Union. The fact that oil had been discovered in Alaska and that Texas-based firms had established operations there prompted powerful Texans such as Senate majority leader Lyndon B. Johnson and Speaker of the House of Representatives Sam Rayburn to withdraw their opposition to statehood for Alaska. Hawaii’s senators were admitted into the exclusive club along with Alaska’s senators to maintain the balance of power between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate. 204  Newspaper Columns Who in his right mind could think that the members of the most exclusive club in the world would benefit by diluting their power to incorporate two senators from the unincorporated territory of Puerto Rico? ...