[Boy Genius]

I saw the thread on Quebec in Canada, so it made me wonder on your opinions on Puerto Rico.

Currently, PR is a self-governing, semi-autonomous commonwealth.
Among other things, this means it has a higher status than a territory, but less than a state; they have one non-voting member in the House. As a commonwealth, among other things, they pay no income tax to the federal government, but the people are not allowed to vote in Presidental elections.

Currently, they have had several referendums in the past and are considering yet another. The three issues to be voted on would be whether or not the people want to be a state, indepedent, or continue on as they are now. (The referendums are of course non-binding.) In the last referendum, the vote was just a couple percentage points below over half, at which point it would get really complicated as they went through the steps toward statehood. Independance has never gotten very many votes.

Anyway, this was a brief overview. Research it yourself if you feel like it and tell me if you think Puerto Rico should continue as is, become independent, or become a state.

As for me, I want them to be a state.

[Danny]

Minorities tend to vote liberal, right? If that's the case, statehood is my vote.

[JerryLove]

There is a small but fanatic popultion in PR that opposes statehood. If you go back to the 50s, the major source of terrorism against the US was, in fact, from those in PR opposed to statehood. They won.

[Boy Genius]

Yes, such things as attacks on Congress tended to turn public opinion (on the mainland United States) against the idea of statehood.