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57 New Eng. L. Rev. F. 1 (2022-2023)

handle is hein.journals/remand57 and id is 1 raw text is: The Puerto Rico Constitution at Seventy: A Failed Experiment in American Federalism? RAFAEL COX-ALOMAR* The United States includes five Territories: American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the U. S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico [...J the Territory Clause permits Congress to 'treat Puerto Rico differently from States so long as there is a rational basis for its actions.'1 The answer to appellant's contention is that the constitution of the Commonwealth is not just another Organic Act of the Congress. We find no reason to impute to the Congress the perpetration of such a monumental hoax. Public Law 600 offered to the people of Puerto Rico a 'compact' under which, if the people accepted it, as they did, they were authorized to 'organize a government pursuant to a constitution of their own adoption.'2 I. Introduction: The Puerto Rico Constitution at Seventy July 25, 1952, marks the beginning of one of the more contested experiments in American federalism. On that hot summer day, thousands of Puerto Ricans cheered jubilantly as they witnessed the inauguration of Puerto Rico's Constitution and saw Governor Luis Munoz Marin raise the flag of Puerto Rico for the first time while a military band solemnly played the island's national anthem, La Borinquena. Addressing the crowd gathered outside Puerto Rico's Capitolio, the island's first elected governor described the significance of the moment in a speech full of poetry and symbolism-unsurprising for a man who in his youth was first and foremost a writer and a poet.3 On that historic occasion, Governor Munoz Marin proclaimed: I will now raise the flag of the people of Puerto Rico upon the foundation of the Commonwealth in voluntary association of citizenship and friendship with the United States of America. The people will see in their flag the symbol of their spirit against the Professor of Law at the University of the District of Columbia's David A. Clarke School of Law in Washington D.C. Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School (Winter 2022). 1 United States v. Vaello Madero, 142 S.Ct. 1539, 1541, 1543 (2022). 2 Figueroa v. Puerto Rico, 232 F. 2d 615, 620 (1st Cir. 1956). 3 See generally CARMELO ROSARIO NATAL, LA JUVENTUD DE LUIS MUOz MARIN: VIDA Y PENSAMIENTO, 1898-1932 (Rio Piedras: Editorial Edil 1989). 1

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