I've looked and haven't seen this diaried anywhere, so I'll post one of my rare diaries. I'm amazed that this hasn't been headlined. Today, the House of Representatives passed the Puerto Rico Democracy Act in a bipartisan, albeit lopsided, vote.
The 223 Yeas included 184 Democrats and 39 Republicans, while the 169 Nays included 40 Democrats and 129 Republicans. I was first alerted to this upcoming vote by a couple of wingnuts who post on the non-baseball portion of a baseball blog on which I sometimes participate, who were absolutely apoplectic that the Democratic "radicals" would propose something that might allow Puerto Rico to become a State, which it clearly should NEVER become (according to them) because it would essentially put the entire population on welfare at the expense of the people living in the current 50 States.
I pointed out this morning on that blog that Puerto Rican statehood, if that's what Puerto Ricans want, has long been included in national GOP platforms, and that the Puerto Rican party favoring statehood is largely composed of people who are national Republicans. In fact, the current Governor of Puerto Rico, Luis Fortuno (sorry that I don't know how to include the little sign above the "n" in his name indicating the correct pronunciation) caucused with the Republicans when he was Puerto Rico's delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, and that he (and large majorities of both houses of the Puerto Rico legislature) are members of the party favoring statehood, which is the most conservative of Puerto Rico's parties.
Nevertheless, most Republicans in Congress, and the vast majority of the wingnut blogosphere, oppose this bill, which would ask Puerto Ricans two questions, in two successive referenda: (1) Do you favor the status quo, and (2) If the answer to the first question is "no," do you favor (a) independence, (b) statehood, (c) independence in partnership with the United States, or (d) the status quo? If the first question was answered in favor of the status quo (as it has been in previous referenda) that would end the matter. But since one possibility is statehood, even though that would have to be approved by Congress, the right wing, led by Rush Limbaugh (who evidently thinks people living in the islands of the Caribbean are worthy of servicing his sexual needs, but not of voting for his President or Congress), is OUTRAGED at this travesty being perpetrated by RADICAL DEMOCRATS!
Personally, I think this is a stroke of absolute brilliance by the House Democratic leadership. It makes the Republicans put up or shut up on ANY claims to any portion of the Hispanic vote. I suspect that's why both of the Diaz-Balart brothers, who are quite conservative Republican Cuban-Americans from Florida, vote in favor of the bill. And I suspect it's why the few principled members of the Republican caucus -- even those with whom I generally disagree quite strenuously because they're quite conservative, but who aren't racists, such as Roscoe Bartlett (R, MD-06) also voted for the bill. But true to form, the great majority of House Republicans voted "nay," even though their party platform has long favored Puerto Rican statehood if that's what Puerto Ricans want. The message couldn't possibly be more clear: "We'll SAY we're on your side, but when push comes to shove, we're on the side of the people who hate your guts!"
The Republicans have a history of this. I'm old enough to remember when the delegations to the Democratic National Convention from the Deep South were lily white, and when the delegations to the Republican National Convention from those states were thoroughly integrated. But when the national Democrats told the Dixiecrats to either admit African-Americans or take a hike, the Dixiecrats took a hike, and many African-Americans in the South switched their loyalty to the Democratic Party. And then when Ronald Reagan opened his general election campaign in Philadelphia, MS (the county seat of the county in which the three civil rights workers were murdered for the heinous crime of registering African-Americans to vote, and where all-white juries refused to convict anybody of the crimes), African-Americans began to vote solidly Democratic. (That was also the point at which I decided that I, even as a white guy who had grown up as a Republican and been very active in Republican politics, could no longer be a Republican.)
There is something to be said for taking positions that are the correct positions as a matter of morality, which is that those positions tend to be on the right side of history, and while they may cost political support in the short run, they gain it in the long run. And if a political party constantly seems to be fighting a rear-guard action against history, as the Republican Party has been doing for most of my adult lifetime, they shouldn't be too surprised if they have diminishing success over the long term.