Pedro Rosselló
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| Pedro Rosselló González | |
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| In office January 2, 1993 – January 2, 2001 |
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| Preceded by | Rafael Hernández Colón |
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| Succeeded by | Sila Calderón |
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| Born | April 5, 1944 San Juan, Puerto Rico |
| Political party | New Progressive Party Democratic Party |
| Spouse | Irma Margarita "Maga" Nevares |
| Profession | Pediatrician |
Pedro Juan Rosselló González [pronounced “roh-seh-yóh”] (born April 5, 1944 in San Juan, Puerto Rico) is a Puerto Rican politician who was the sixth Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico from 1993 to 2001. He also served as President of the Council of U.S. State Governments as well as Chairman of the Southern Governors' Association, and Democratic Governors Association. After a two year absence from politics, Rosselló decided to seek a third term in the General Elections of 2004, but was defeated by the Resident Commissioner Aníbal Acevedo-Vilá by a margin of 3,566 votes (0.18%). Presently, he is a member of the Senate of Puerto Rico, representing the district of Arecibo.
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[edit] Education and professional career
After completing his elementary and secondary education at Academia Santa Teresita and Academia del Perpetuo Socorro in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Rosselló. moved to the United States to attend college. He earned his a Bachelor of Science degree, Magna Cum Laude at the University of Notre Dame in 1966, as well as academic distinctions for best student athlete. After graduation, he continued his studies in medicine at Yale University, which he completed in 1970, also graduating Magna Cum Laude. Later he specialized in general and pediatric surgery at Harvard University. Following his residency at Harvard, he practiced medicine in Puerto Rico while also attending the University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus where he earned a Master's in Public Health (MPH) degree in 1981 (also graduating Magna Cum Laude). He later earned a graduate degree in Education from the InterAmerican University of Puerto Rico. During his college years, Rosselló became an avid tennis player that led him not only to be named the head of Notre Dame's men's tennis team, but also to play for Puerto Rico's national team in regional championships throughout the Caribbean.
Rosselló started his professional career alternating as an instructor at Harvard Medical School and as an assistant professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus, where he would later become an associate professor.
He became Chief of Pediatric Surgery and later Chief Surgeon at the University of Puerto Rico Children's Hospital. In 1985, Rosselló was named Health Services Director for the city of San Juan by then Mayor Baltasar Corrada del Río.
[edit] Political career
Rosselló began his political career in 1988 when he ran for the post of Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico, (the island's representative in the United States Congress) losing to Jaime Fuster of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD). Nevertheless, he was the candidate from the New Progressive Party (PNP) for whom the most votes were cast in the 1988 Elections. This positioned him well to become his party's next leader. After leading a "Statehood Crusade" throughout the islands of Puerto Rico, in 1991 he became president of the PNP, successfully leading an opposition to a referendum sponsored by the then Governor of the island, Rafael Hernández Colón. In 1992 he successfully ran for Governor of Puerto Rico, defeating Victoria Muñoz Mendoza of the PPD.
[edit] Governor
As governor, Rosselló launched an anti-crime campaign known as "Mano Dura Contra el Crimen" ("Strong hand against crime") in which the Puerto Rico National Guard was used to assist state police. His administration was also characterized by involvement in big construction and other large-scale government projects which included a train system, dubbed Tren Urbano, and a massive aqueduct system which linked two major water reservoirs on the island. His policies also included a push toward privatization of public entities.
Under his administration, a healthcare reform bill was approved. He led two campaigns for Puerto Rican statehood in 1993 and 1998 in which locally-enacted plebiscites were held to consult the Puerto Rican public on the political status with the United States. He supported the congressional Young Bill, which sought to carry out a referendum in Puerto Rico to define the political status of the island. However, the bill died in committee in the Senate of the United States. Nevertheless, Rosselló carried out a non-binding plebiscite in 1998 which gave electors four options and a fifth None of the Above column. The opposing Popular Democratic Party led a campaign to boycott the plebiscite and called the electorate to vote for the None of the Above column. The boycott was successful, as the None of the Above column garnered 50.3% of the total votes [1]. This opposition was led by Aníbal Acevedo-Vilá, who in 2004 would defeat Rosello in the gubernatorial elections.
In the 1996 elections he defeated rivals Héctor Luis Acevedo (PPD), who was mayor of San Juan at the time, and Representative David Noriega (PIP), winning a second term after obtaining more than one million votes and the largest victory margin since 1964.
In 1998, a 45% stake of the state-owned Puerto Rico Telephone Company (PRTC) was sold to a consortium led by GTE (now Verizon) and Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, led to a general strike organized by several labor unions. A similar attempt to privatize PRTC in 1988, under then Governor Rafael Hernández Colón, led to a similar strike which doomed the sale. At the time, Rosselló opposed the sale of PRTC by Rafael Hernández Colón, since PRTC held a monopoly of the telephone communications industry, which made it a highly profitable asset to the government. Due to implementation of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which deregulated the monopolies many regional telephone and cable television companies held, the island's telecommunications were opened to competition. Since Rosselló did not view the government as a competitor in the open market, his administration deemed the sale of PRTC desirable and so proceeded. The sale price was 1.9 billion dollars, which union leaders described as "ridiculously low" (PRTC generated about a 100 million dollars of yearly profit at the time of the sale).
[edit] Vieques controversy
In April 1999, a U.S. Navy bomber misfired its missiles at a practice range and struck the main Watch-post on the offshore island of Vieques, killing David Sanes, a civilian employee of the Navy. The protests that followed on the small Puerto Rican island of Vieques gathered international attention (see Navy-Vieques protests). Governor Rosselló supported the immediate exit of the Navy, appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee pressing the Senators, among them John Warner and James Inhofe, to immediately take action so that the Navy could withdraw it troops from the island. In 2000, Rosselló and then President Bill Clinton signed an agreement that the U.S. Navy would withdraw from Vieques by the year 2003, if voters in Vieques ratified the agreement in a referendum. The agreement included $40 million in public works in Vieques. After Clinton and Rosselló left office, the administration of the next Governor of Puerto Rico, Sila Calderón, preceded the federal sponsored referendum with a local one, a move favored by most residents. However, under increasing pressure President George W. Bush ordered the Navy to leave Vieques, and the final withdrawal took place on May 1, 2003.
[edit] Corruption controversies
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Rosselló's last term was marked by a large number of scandals and the convictions of many members of his administration on corruption charges. As of January 2006, over thirty members of his administration have been convicted, including his Department of Education Secretary Victor Fajardo, other Cabinet members, and campaign organizers. Many others are awaiting trial or sentencing. In addition, dozens of contractors, administrators and businessmen with whom the Rosselló administration did business are being prosecuted or have been incarcerated for involvement in bribery and extortion schemes. His personal assistant, Maria de los Angeles Rivera Rangel, was found guilty of extortion and other charges and sentenced by a federal judge to four years in prison.[2] Regardless, Rosselló maintains he was unaware of the illegal activities taking place while he was in power.
On October 2, 2006, Rosselló was referred to the Special Independent Prosecutor by Puerto Rico Justice Secretary Roberto Sánchez Ramos. The referral carries a recommendation of prosecution for aggravated illegal appropriation, falsification of documents and taking advantage of his position in the public sector for illegal purposes. The referral to the SIP stems from an investigation into how Rosselló obtained an illegal upgrade of his pension based on a fraudulent certification stating he had worked in a government position during the summers of 1962 and 1963. This certification was used to justify a one hundred percent increase in his pension payments. The certification document states he was working at the Rio Piedras Psychiatric Hospital as a therapy and leadership group assistant during both summers he claimed he worked, however such position did not exist at the time. The SIP panel subsequently determined it had no jurisdiction over the case and returned it to the Justice Secretary, who then filed charges against Rosselló that are still pending a Rule 6 appeal after an initial finding of no probable cause.
In addition, newspaper reports from 1962 point out that during that summer Rosselló was playing tennis at the Ninth Central American and Caribbean Games in Jamaica, as well as in seven mainland US tournaments. Documents provided by both the University of Notre Dame and Harvard University clearly indicate he was enrolled for summer classes at the latter institution during July and August 1963. The Puerto Rico Retirement Systems Administration ruled the pension upgrade from $29,536 to $52,500 a year[1] was fraudulent, and ordered Rosselló to pay back $80,248 he had illegally received. Supporters of Rosselló raised the funds and paid the sum in his name. José Acevedo Martínez, the former head of the ASSMCA agency who certified Rosselló's documentation for the fraudulent pension increase, has already been convicted for his participation in this matter and is currently serving a prison sentence. [2]
On December 15, 2006 Senator Rosselló was charged with several counts of fraud relating to his retirement pension. Rosselló's attorney successfully argued the hearing on probable cause for arrest should be postponed due to the senator's absence from Puerto Rico at the time. San Juan Superior Court Judge Ada López Santiago -- who had been appointed to the judgeship by Rosselló just days before the end of his last term as Governor -- agreed with the defense and postponed the hearing until December 28, one day after his scheduled return from Vienna, Virginia. The subject of suspects being charged in absentia has been a very controversial topic in legal circles in Puerto Rico, ever since the Puerto Rican Supreme Court ruled such a practice was legal as long as the prosecution undertook reasonable attempts to locate the defendant. The judge, however, ruled against another motion in which the defense asked her to order the Justice Department to turn over all evidence they may have that is not contained in sworn statements.
On December 28, Judge López Santiago ruled there was no probable cause to arrest Rosselló, a ruling the Attorney General immediately appealed.[3] A new probable cause hearing has been scheduled for January 24, where the evidence will be presented to a different judge.[4] On December 30, attorney David Noriega, the former president of the former Commonwealth "Blue Ribbon" Independent Citizens Commission for the Evaluation of Government Transactions who in 1996 unsuccessfully ran for Governor of Puerto Rico against Rossello, stated Judge López Santiago had assigned herself the Rosselló case when it came across her desk for processing. Justice Secretary Sánchez Ramos confirmed this information was correct, as the duty for case assignments rotates among all the Superior Court judges and López Santiago was on duty when the charges were filed against Rosselló.[5]
[edit] Retirement, return and election results
In June 1999, Rosselló, embroiled in mounting scandals and controversies, announced he would not seek a third term in the elections of 2000. He moved to the Boston area where he taught on the faculty of the JFK School of Government at Harvard University. Later he moved to Virginia, where he first served as a fellow at the Wilson Center and later taught at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and George Washington University in Washington, DC. Rosselló claims he temporarily relocated to Virginia, but official records show Rosselló requested a Virginia driver's license and registered to vote in that state, a process which requires that the applicant swear that he is a resident of Virginia. In addition, he filed personal tax returns in Puerto Rico while living in Virginia in which he claimed he was not a permanent resident of the island. [6]
In 2003, Rosselló returned to politics and won his party's nomination for the gubernatorial candidacy in a primary election against his successor as PNP leader, Carlos Pesquera. In the 2004 Puerto Rico Elections the PNP won majorities in both houses of the Legislature, the mayorships of 42 of the island's 78 municipalities and the Resident Commissioner post in the U.S. Congress. However, Rosselló was defeated by incumbent Resident Commissioner Aníbal Acevedo Vilá by a close margin, and a recount was requested as permitted by law.
During the recount period, Rosselló argued that certain ballots in which voters had made multiple marks were invalid. The ballots in question were cast both for the Puerto Rico Independence Party and Rosselló's New Progressive Party, with individual candidate marks in favor of Acevedo Vila as the candidate for governor of the Popular Democratic Party. The mark indicating the selection of a political party selects that party's slate of candidates by default, but the voter can also select individual candidates from other parties to replace candidates from the default slate.
In this case, the voter was voting for the PIP as a party for the purposes of stating party affiliation and for the PIP's default slate, but had decided to select individual candidates from other party's slates. This type of voting is identified by law in Rule 50 of the State Election Commission's rules, based on the Commonwealth's Electoral Law as amended in 2004, Title 2, Section 2.001, Subsection 3[7], as a "mixed vote", and is a practice that is entirely legal and has been published in the official voter's instructions by the State Election Commission for quite some time. This ballot method was also allowed and seen in the 1996 and 2000 elections, and had never been contested, either by the legislature or by the PNP's Electoral Commissioner. The individual votes for candidates not from the voter's selected party are then deducted from the votes given to the default candidates of the voter's party. The end result is a single vote per candidate, as the law states.
Although the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico had ruled 4-3 that the votes where valid and should be counted, and the marks Rosselló challenged were clearly legal under long standing legislation, Federal district judge Daniel Domínguez ordered the votes be counted but not tallied until he reached a final decision on the matter. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit would later determine the federal district court lacked jurisdiction on the matter, and furthermore ruled Dominguez had grossly overstepped the bounds of his authority. (1) The case was returned to the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico and the disputed votes were counted and tallied. On December 28, 2004 Acevedo-Vilá was certified as the elected Governor of Puerto Rico.
[edit] Senator
Rosselló was able to gain a seat in the Senate of Puerto Rico when Victor Loubriel, an elected first-time district senator representing Arecibo, unexpectedly announced his resignation two days after being sworn. Opposition parties, and even people within Rosselló's own party, denounced the elected senator's resignation as being pressured by Rosselló and his supporters so that Rosselló could fill in his vacancy thus providing him a platform from which to challenge the Acevedo-Vilá administration. The senator's resignation gave the New Progressive Party a seat it could fill, so Rosselló announced his intentions of filling the vacancy and officially assumed duties as a Senator of Puerto Rico on February 13, 2005.
Prior to assuming office, Rosselló announced his intentions to remove and replace Senate President Kenneth McClintock. An internal power struggle within the New Progressive Party between Rosselló and McClintock led to a split within the PNP Senate delegation in May 2005. After a caucus meeting, eleven of the seventeen senators elected by the New Progressive Party voted for Rosselló, with the other six boycotting the meeting. McClintock and five other senators (Orlando Parga, Luz Arce, Migdalia Padilla, Carlos Díaz, and Jorge de Castro Font) refused to follow the caucus' decision and opted to form their own coalition with the nine members of the Senate Minority in order to have a fifteen member majority, denying the unanimous consent required by Senate Rules 2 and 6 to remove a President, thus permitting McClintock to remain as Senate President. The party directorate subsequently recommended that McClintock, Parga, and de Castro Font be expelled from the Party, and that Arce, Padilla, and Díaz be censured and prohibited to run for re-election under the party's flag or logo. The party General Assembly, however, in August, 2005 only took action to expel de Castro Font, leaving the status of McClintock and the other four senators in limbo after approving in August 2006 a generic censure resolution that did not name any officeholders by name.
On January 16, 2007, he led the party caucus in the Senate to a reprimand of two more NPP senators, fellow Arecibo senator José Emilio González and Bayamón senator Carmelo Ríos for voting in favor of a concurrent resolution proposing a constitutional amendment that would turn Puerto Rico's bicameral legislature into a unicameral legislative system, increasing the number of reprimanded caucus members to eight of the total of sixteen elected in 2004. Both Emilio González and Rios have expressed their lack of concern over the reprimand.
[edit] March Against Colonialism
On February 21, 2006, Pedro Rosselló set out to make a stand against what he calls "colonialism" by organizing a "March for the End of Colonialism" (La Marcha por el Fin de la Colonia) in an effort to emulate what Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. did in the Salt March and Selma to Montgomery marches respectively. Rosselló's comparison to the two civil rights leaders caused criticisms from the press and many others throughout the island.
The stated purpose of the march was to expose the colonial status of Puerto Rico, and exhort the United States Congress to pass a bill that would allow the self-determination of the people of Puerto Rico, with congressionally mandated non-territorial, non-colonial options. Rosselló is a vocal and prominent supporter of statehood for the island, wanting Puerto Rico to become the 51st state of the United States, a position opposed by a narrow majority of the island's residents. The march covered the complete perimeter of Puerto Rico, tracing its coastline for 16 days and 271.3 miles. The United States Congress has not acted on any requests from the march's organizers.
[edit] Notes
Rosello is the uncle of former Menudo bandmember Roy Rosselló. His nephew, Rey Rosselló, was once married to singer/actress Mara Croatto.
[edit] Publications
- Campos, Cielos y Flamboyanes: Con Pedro Rossello de 1988 a 1997 - ISBN 1881714098. Published in 1997.
- El Status es el Issue - biography written by Alberto Goachet and authorized by Rosselló. Published on January 12, 2005.
- The Unfinished Business of American Democracy - published on October 27, 2005.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ CEEPR Plebiscito de 1998 (Spanish)
- ^ Maria de los Angeles Rivera Rangel Appeal. United States Court of Appeals (February 8, 2005). Retrieved on July 17, 2006.
[edit] External links
- Rosselló's campaign website (Spanish)
- Rosselló's achievements in office 1993-2000 (Spanish)
- Rosselló's official senate profile webpage (Spanish)
- U.S. State Department biographical profile on Pedro Rosselló (English)
- Yale Medical Review article on Pedro Rosselló (former alum of the school) (English)
| Preceded by Rafael Hernández Colón |
Governor of Puerto Rico 1993-2001 |
Succeeded by Sila Calderón |
| Governors of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico |
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| Luis Muñoz Marín • Roberto Sánchez Vilella • Luis A. Ferré • Rafael Hernández Colón Carlos Romero Barceló • Pedro Rosselló González • Sila Calderón • Aníbal Acevedo Vilá |
| New Progressive Party Gubernatorial Nominees | |
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| Ferré Aguayo | Romero Barceló | Corrada del Río | Rosselló González | Pesquera Morales |
