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The United States acquired the islands of Puerto Rico in 1898 after the Spanish–American War, and the archipelago has been under U.S. sovereignty since.In 1950, Congress enacted the Puerto Rico Federal Relations Act of 1950 or legislation (P.L. 81-600), authorizing Puerto Rico to hold a constitutional convention and, in 1952, the people of Puerto Rico ratified a constitution establishing a ...
Puerto Rico's governor, who is the head of government, and the members of the legislature are elected every four years by popular vote. Puerto Rico's legislature is a bicameral body consisting of a Senate and a House. The members of the judicial branch are appointed by the Governor with the approval of the Senate to serve until they reach age 70.
The Territories Clause of the United States Constitution (Art.IV, Sec. 3, cl. 2) allows for Congress to "dispose of" Puerto Rico and allow it to become independent of the U.S. (in the same way as the Philippines did in 1945) or, under the authority of the Admissions Clause (Art.
The government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is a republican democracy established by the Constitution of Puerto Rico in 1952. Under a system of separation of powers , the government is divided among three branches: the executive , the legislative , and the judicial .
The political parties in Puerto Rico campaigned for legal reform of Puerto Rico, but were largely unsuccessful until 1946, when Jesús T. Piñero was appointed governor, the first Puerto Rican native to be so. A 1947 U.S. Congress act subsequently gave the Puerto Ricans the right to elect their own governor by popular vote.
Under the Constitution of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico designates itself with the term Commonwealth and Puerto Ricans have a degree of administrative autonomy similar to citizens of a U.S. state and like the States, it has a republican form of government, organized pursuant to a constitution adopted by its people, and a bill of rights.
The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (Spanish: Constitución del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit. 'Constitution of the Free Associated State of Puerto Rico') is the primary organizing law for the unincorporated U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, describing the duties, powers, structures and functions of the government of Puerto Rico in nine articles.
Puerto Rico is the only current U.S. jurisdiction whose legal system operates primarily in a language other than American English: namely, Spanish.Because the U.S. federal government operates primarily in English, Puerto Rican attorneys are typically bilingual in order to litigate in English in U.S. federal courts and to litigate federal preemption issues in Puerto Rican courts.