Puerto Rico Statehood Students Association

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The Puerto Rico Statehood Students Association (PRSSA) is an American student organization dedicated to promoting statehood for Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States, and coordinating the absentee balloting of registered Puerto Ricans studying in stateside colleges and universities.

Contents 1 History 2 Reactivation 3 References 4 External links

[edit] History

PRSSA was founded by two then-college students in 1979, Kenneth McClintock, Puerto Rico's current President of the Senate, and Luis Fortuño, Puerto Rico's current Resident Commissioner and the 2008 New Progressive Party (NPP) gubernatorial candidate. The organization was set up to promote the discussion of Puerto Rico's political status dilemma in mainland United States colleges and universities, promote statehood for America's largest territory and facilitate absentee balloting in the islands' elections for the estimated 15,000 young voting residents of Puerto Rico registered in college campuses throughout the states and Washington, DC.^[1]

McClintock served as the association's first president until the summer of 1980, when he graduated from the Tulane University Law School, and was succeeded by Fortuño, a Georgetown University undergrad. Among PRSSA leaders, Tulane University student Pedro Pierluisi went on to become Puerto Rico's Attorney General and the 2008 NPP candidate for Resident Commissioner, George Washington University student José Rodríguez Suárez went on to become Puerto Rico's Under Secretary of State and José Jaime Pierluisi became Governor Pedro Rosselló's Economic Advisor prior to his untimely death in 1994. Other PRSSA members who have been prominent in later life include Francisco Cimadevilla, Editor-in-Chief at Casiano Communications, Ricardo Skerrett, an immigration attorney in Tampa, Florida and Manuel De Juan, a former Assistant Director of the Puerto Rico Tourism Company.^[2]

Beginning in 1980, the association held several annual conventions, the first of which was a three-day meeting at the now defunct Cerromar Hotel in Vega Alta, Puerto Rico that featured then-congressman and future United States Senator, the late Paul Simon as keynote speaker, as well as then-Gov. Carlos Romero Barceló and statehood patriarch and former Gov. Luis A. Ferré as speakers.

During the 1980 gubernatorial election recount, the over 1,500 absentee ballots generated by PRSSA for incumbent Governor Carlos Romero Barceló was an important factor in his reelection by an approximately 3,000-vote margin.^[3]

[edit] Reactivation

In November 2007, José Cabrera Costas and William-José Vélez González, students from Florida International University and from the University of Dayton School of Law respectively, reactivated the association.^[4] Cabrera Costas is the current president and Vélez González serves as vice president. As of March 2008, PRSSA's official group on Facebook, "Statehood for Puerto Rico", has over 4,000 members.^[5] Accordingly, the association seeks to promote statehood for Puerto Rico and facilitate absentee balloting in the upcoming 2008 NPP primaries and general elections^[6][7][8].

On February 2008, the organization celebrated its more than 100 registered members and over 35 chapters in universities across the nation, and on March 9, 2008, the PRSSA websites, including the blog, received more than 10,000 visits^[9], hence providing the results for the NPP Primaries to thousands of people from across the nation.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Fortuño biography
• Pierluisi biography
• Puerto Rico Statehood Students Association Official Website
• Puerto Rico Statehood Students Association Official Blog