The federal government approved spending $2.5 million for a plebiscite on Puerto Rico's political status.
The money was approved as part of the omnibus spending plan for fiscal 2014 passed by Congress and signed by President Obama on Jan. 17.
The plebiscite will ask Puerto Rico's voters whether they want to remain as a commonwealth or choose another status, the most likely of which would be a state. The Puerto Rico government will create the language of the plebiscite, subject to approval by United States attorney general Eric Holder.
The money would be used for voter education as well as for the plebiscite.
The new plan comes in the aftermath of a November 2012 plebiscite in which 54% of the voters voted against the current commonwealth status. On a second question asking what should replace a commonwealth, 61% voted in favor of statehood.
Puerto Rico Gov. Alejandro García Padilla has said the wording and structure of the November 2012 plebiscite exagerated the level of support for statehood. García Padilla and the party that he leads, the Popular Democratic Party, supports the current commonwealth status.
If Puerto Rico were to become a state it would probably lose the ability to sell triple-tax exempt bonds to U.S. state residents, as was the case with Hawaii and Alaska. However, existing bonds would probably retain this tax-exemption.
The current budget runs through September. If the plebiscite isn't held by then, government officials could request that the money be rolled over into the following fiscal year's budget.
If the plebiscite is held this fiscal year and Puerto Rico voters vote in favor of statehood, the measure would be subject to approval by the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate before the president could sign off on it.
The experience of Alaska and Hawaii shows that the road to statehood can be long. For example, Alaskans voted 3-2 in 1946 to approve statehood. It didn't become a state until 1959.
