In Letter To Control Board Appointees, Gutiérrez Asks For “Public Commitment To Puerto Rican People.”

Washington, D.C. – On Thursday, Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez wrote to each of the seven newly-appointed members of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico, the Control Board or Junta de Control, that will oversee Puerto Rico under the PROMESA (Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act) legislation.  A fierce opponent of PROMESA, Rep. Gutiérrez tried to amend the legislation so that meetings of the Control Board would be held in public, votes would be recorded, logs of experts, consultants, and lobbyists would be disclosed, and proceedings of the Control Board would be made available in Spanish, the language of Puerto Rico.  His amendments were blocked by Republican leaders and were not given an up or down vote.

So, the day after their names were announced, Rep. Gutiérrez wrote each member “to make a public commitment to the Puerto Rican people that you will conduct your work on the control board transparently and in the mother tongue of the people who will be deeply impacted for years to come by your decisions.”

Text of Letter:  090116 Gutierrez Letter.pdf

Rep. Gutiérrez said the members of the Control Board, appointed by the government in Washington, with members who have ties to the former Governor Luis Fortuño and ties to Wall Street investors, start with a deep deficit of trust when it comes to Puerto Ricans.

“Just because many of the members of the Junta de Control are Puerto Rican does not inspire trust in Puerto Rico, because some of the worst injustices committed against the Puerto Rican people in recent years have come from officials who are Puerto Ricans themselves,” the Congressman said. 

“A lot of Puerto Ricans, myself included, start from the premise that the members of the Junta de Control are in the pockets of the bondholders, the partisan insiders who are responsible for the current mess, and those who have demonstrated time and again they do not put the needs of the Puerto Rican people first and foremost.  So whatever the Junta does starts with transparency, respect for the majority of Puerto Ricans who speak and read Spanish, and going an extra mile or two or three to show that Puerto Rico comes before Wall Street.”

Rep. Gutiérrez represents the Fourth District of Illinois, which has a significant Puerto Rican population.  He was born to parents who left Puerto Rico for Chicago in the 1950s but returned to Puerto Rico, with the Congressman, in the 1960s.  Rep. Gutiérrez is a Member of the House Judiciary Committee and is the Co-Chair of the Immigration Task Force of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. 

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