The No-Vote 5 : They Walk, Talk and Sound Just Like Full-Fledged Members of Congress--but They Aren’t

More than 100 new members of Congress are taking office this year, but none has a constituency quite like Carlos Romero-Barcelo’s.

A total of 3.6 million people--a number larger than the populations of 26 states--are represented by Romero-Barcelo. Indeed, his district is so crowded, it would normally be handled by at least six members of Congress. The voters who sent Romero-Barcelo to Washington are U.S. citizens, yet they cannot vote for President and do not pay federal income tax. They are subject to numerous laws enacted without their consent.

If this sounds like a weirdly distorted version of American democracy, just ask the residents of Puerto Rico what it’s like living in a legalistic nether world where they are citizens of a self-governing commonwealth that is neither colony nor state.

Better yet, ask Carlos Romero-Barcelo: He’s a barrel-chested 60-year-old with a dramatic thatch of white hair and a passionate speaking style, a former San Juan mayor and commonwealth governor who was recently elected to the office of resident commissioner, the non-voting Puerto Rican member of Congress.

Romero-Barcelo can sit on committees, accrue seniority, introduce legislation and even debate on the floor. But when it comes to the final vote on a bill, he has to excuse himself and head for the cloakroom, like a kindergarten student who’s being punished by his teacher.

“There is a lot of frustration involved (in the job),” says Romero-Barcelo, “precisely because of the lack of participation in that moment when you have to make the final decision.”

Romero-Barcelo is not alone in his predicament. Four other members of Congress, for constitutional reasons, are denied the same voting rights: the representatives of Guam, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia. They walk the walk, they talk the talk, and in almost every respect are treated like other congressional representatives.

But at bottom-line time, they are not the same.

Lacking a floor vote means fighting for legislative table scraps because of an inability to broker deals. This is especially important because a key part of the non-voting members’ jobs involves monitoring legislation to make sure their constituencies have not been forgotten, or fighting for more funding for existing programs such as Medicare.

They are, essentially, lobbyists who just happen to be allowed on the House floor. And in a city where the quid pro quo defines the way power is distributed, the No-Vote Five have to rely on friendships, even out-and-out supplication, to get what they want.

“They’re not players. They don’t count,” declares Judi Hasson, a political reporter for USA Today who has covered Ron de Lugo, the Virgin Islands delegate, for the Virgin Islands Daily News. “The territories are like colonies--the most basic stuff they have to beg, borrow and connive for.”

Non-voting territorial representatives have been seated in the House since 1794, when James White presented his credentials as the delegate from the Territory South of the River Ohio (Tennessee). Puerto Rico has had a resident commissioner since 1900. But it wasn’t until 1970 that non-voting delegates were given the right to be elected to, and vote as members of, standing committees.

Ron de Lugo remembers the old days, the years even before committee membership. He’s the Virgin Islands’ first congressional delegate and has represented his Caribbean homeland almost continuously since 1972.

He vividly remembers coming to Washington in the 1960s as a local legislator, where he would sit in on committee meetings and note the mummified status of the Puerto Rican delegate. That gentleman was allowed to attend meetings, but because he had no official standing, says de Lugo, “he always sat in the same seat, the lowest seat in the committee, and he never moved up (through seniority).”

Those days are long gone and De Lugo, thanks to his seniority, is now chairman of the House Interior subcommittee on insular and international affairs, which oversees U.S. territories. He’s a power broker, albeit a minor one, who can play the game of “I’ll wash your hands if you’ll wash mine.” Nonetheless, it is a neutered version of power: De Lugo is still unable to vote on such life-and-death issues as whether his constituents would be sent to fight in the Gulf War.

Last month, however, the limited rights of De Lugo and his non-voting colleagues were expanded. House Democrats decided to give them the right to vote in the “committee of the whole,” an obscure parliamentary device used to conduct a great deal of the House’s business. (That right was reaffirmed in a House vote Tuesday.) Many House sessions are technically conducted as meetings of the committee of the whole. Now, non-voting delegates can cast a ballot on all roll call votes (for example, for amendments to bills) up to--but still excluding--the final vote. However, if the vote of the five delegates provides the margin of victory, their votes are invalidated and another vote is held without them.

“This new move is very important,” says Antonio Colorado, Romero-Barcelo’s predecessor, “because it gives you bargaining power, not necessarily for the bill itself, but for the amendments. I think this gives us 90% of the power that a congressman has.”

Romero-Barcelo isn’t convinced.

“We have more ability to maneuver than we had before,” he says, “but less than we would if we were full congressmen. And I only have one-sixth of the power that we would have if we were a state.”

Statehood is Romero-Barcelo’s Holy Grail. His November election as resident commissioner was part of a landslide that saw the pro-statehood New Progressive Party capture the Puerto Rican governorship, both houses of the commonwealth legislature and most municipal offices. The NPP plans to hold a referendum on the island’s future this year, and if the statehood forces win, it will petition Congress to make Puerto Rico the 51st member of the union.

But Romero-Barcelo knows Congress could just say “no,” and that would be that. He has something of a fatalistic attitude, thanks to a career filled with unintended slights. Want stories of second-class citizenship? He has plenty:

* There is, for example, the time he forwarded a resume, along with a personal recommendation, to the Agency for International Development. Back came a letter thanking him for the thought, but the letter said, “this agency only hires U.S. citizens.” Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens since 1917.

* Or how about the Department of Education booklet about student scholarships and benefits, which noted that students from Puerto Rico had to convert their currency into U.S. dollars? Puerto Rico’s currency is the same as the mainland’s.

Puerto Rico is not the only non-state to be treated this way. In November, residents of the District of Columbia were so incensed by a death-penalty referendum forced on them by Congress, they voted it down overwhelmingly.

Romero-Barcelo understands this kind of anger, but refuses to give in to it. Besides, he has too much work to do. Even though there are three Puerto Rican-born congressmen (two from New York, one from Chicago), he sees his mandate as representing all Puerto Ricans, which means “I have a lot more casework than the rest of the congressmen.” That work will include lobbying attempts to increase Medicaid and welfare funding for the island.

Ron de Lugo, meanwhile, says he has always viewed his job as “an expanding opportunity,” one in which “you have to move at the right time.” In that sense, the future may be now for the No-Vote Five. Romero-Barcelo sees the new “committee of the whole” rules as an opportunity to create a small caucus among his non-voting colleagues--one that can lobby for particular areas of interest.

But this is only a half-measure. Romero-Barcelo intends to pound home a distinct message every day he’s on Capitol Hill--that Puerto Rico will stay less than sovereign until it achieves statehood.

“One of the things people say here,” he says, “particularly many congressmen, businesspeople, is, ‘Why do you want to change? You have the better of two worlds. You don’t pay taxes.’ And then I say, ‘How much are you willing to give up your political rights for? You’re telling me that because we have tax exemption we should give up our political rights?’

“And they don’t know what to say.”