Resident commissioner announces additional GOP support for status bill
By The Star Staff
Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón announced Wednesday that U.S. Reps. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) and Bill Posey (R-Fla.), and James Moylan, the delegate from the U.S. territory of Guam, joined as co-sponsors of House Resolution (HR) 2757, the Puerto Rico Status Act, which was co-authored by the resident commissioner.
“I’ve always said that increasing support for the statehood cause would be a central part of my legislative agenda, and we’ve done that,” González Colón said. “I am grateful that my colleagues Malliotakis, with whom I have been working since 2021, and Moylan, with whom I serve on the Committee on Natural Resources, have supported this important bill for American citizens in Puerto Rico.”
“In addition, thank you to my colleague Posey for his continued support of our status agenda, first by supporting my bill, HR 1522, voting in favor of the passage of the Puerto Rico Status Act in the House of Representatives last year,” the resident commissioner added. “I will continue to steadily gather support inside and outside Congress for the aspirations for equality expressed by our people, according to the mandate we were given when they overwhelmingly supported statehood in the November 2020 plebiscite.”
Last week, after holding talks and meetings with congressmen in the U.S. capital, González Colón announced that Reps. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) and Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.), and delegate Amata Coleman Radewagen of American Samoa also joined as co-sponsors of the measure.
With a bipartisan effort led by the resident commissioner, the Puerto Rico Status Act was approved in the U.S. House of Representatives in the previous Congress. This year, González Colón reintroduced the measure with bipartisan support among Democrats and Republicans.