“This bill is not the product of consensus. It does not provide for true self-determination. The two-step process in the bill is designed to craft an artificial majority for statehood,” Velazquez and Gutierrez said in their e-mail. “The people of Puerto Rico deserve a truly fair, democratic and inclusive self-determination process that is the product of consensus. H.R. 2499 does not provide for such a process. It is divisive, unfair and undemocratic.”
Gutierrez is taking a particularly hard line, saying that when a similar bill was brought up and passed in 1998, he got 210 minutes for seven amendments. Now he has two amendments and 10 minutes apiece for each.
“I am telling you, this is going to blow up just like the Goldman Sachs derivatives blew up,” he said on the House floor Thursday morning.
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