Antonio J. Colorado had the shortest tenure of any
Puerto Rican Resident Commissioner in nearly
56 years. Nevertheless, he used his expertise in
tax policy to influence national legislation and protect
Puerto Rico’s unique revenue-sharing arrangement with
the federal government.
Colorado was born in New York on September 8,
1939, but grew up in Puerto Rico after his family moved
back to the island for his early education. Colorado’s
father was a major influence in the genesis of the island’s
modern political system and an early backer of the Partido
Popular Democrático (Popular Democratic Party, or PPD).
Colorado’s father designed the PPD’s logo and was a close
friend of Luis Muñoz Marín, Puerto Rico’s most powerful
governor and the party’s founder. The younger Colorado
was groomed for political stardom alongside Muñoz
Marín’s daughter, Victoria Muñoz Mendoza, who later
served in the insular senate and ran for governor.1 Colorado
attended the primary and high school affiliates of the
Universidad de Puerto Rico and returned to the mainland
for college. He graduated from Boston University in
Massachusetts with a bachelor of science degree in 1962.
Two years later, having gone back to the island, he earned a
law degree from the Universidad de Puerto Rico. In 1966,
he earned a master’s degree from Harvard University.2
Colorado passed the bar in 1966 and began working
in tax law, a specialty that fueled his rise to the heights of
Puerto Rican politics. From 1966 to 1969, he worked as a
legal tax aide for and an executive assistant to the Economic
Development Administration of Puerto Rico. He left in
1969 to join a private law firm, where he practiced for the
next 15 years. A respected policy advisor, Colorado served
on Puerto Rico’s Tax Reform Commission in 1973 and later
lectured at the law schools of the Universidad de Puerto Rico
and Inter-American University.3
In 1985 Colorado was appointed Puerto Rico’s
administrator of economic development, solidifying
his status as the island’s foremost financial mind. Over
the next five years, Colorado worked to protect Puerto
Rico’s unique revenue-sharing relationship with the federal
government, which used tax breaks to lure major industry to
Puerto Rican shores. The corporations that set down roots
in Puerto Rico were known as “936 companies,” after the
Internal Revenue Code governing the insular tax shelter.4
Colorado’s defense of the tax break was part of the
PPD’s broader agenda to keep the federal government
at arm’s length, giving the island more control over its
domestic economy. Puerto Rico’s main English-language
newspaper called Colorado “smart, hard-driving, and
approachable,” qualities that made him a key player in
the PPD’s ongoing feud with members of the Partido
Nuevo Progresista (New Progressive Party, or PNP), which
wanted to reform Puerto Rico’s unique tax incentives and
pave the way for statehood. Equally important, according
to the San Juan Star, Colorado’s demeanor made him “a
highly effective one-on-one salesman,” and he had “immense
confidence in” the island’s financial capacities. As Puerto
Rico’s chief economist, he was well versed in international
finance and had traveled widely in the Caribbean, and
often to Washington, to lobby members of the House
and Senate.5 In 1990, Colorado was named Puerto Rico’s
secretary of state, enabling him to directly engage nations in
the Caribbean Basin that struggled with similar problems.
When Puerto Rico’s Resident Commissioner, Jaime B. Fuster, accepted a position on the island’s supreme court
in late February 1992, Colorado was recommended for
the post. Replacing a Resident Commissioner did not
require a special election; the candidate needed only to be
nominated and confirmed by the insular senate.6 Given his
long career in tax policy, Colorado seemed a logical choice to the island’s sitting PPD administration. With Congress
set to consider whether to delete section 936 from the tax
code and quit providing incentives to big pharmaceutical
companies (one of the largest employers in Puerto Rico),
Colorado was in a better position than nearly anyone else
to lobby on the island’s behalf. His confirmation hearings
were so straightforward, that one newspaper described
the process as “smooth sailing.”7 Even before taking office
late in the winter of 1992, Colorado began speaking with
members of the Senate’s Finance Committee to prepare for
the upcoming debate.8 “If a man and a place were meant
to meet,” wrote one of San Juan’s leading newspapers that
March, “it’s Antonio [J.] ‘Tito’ Colorado and the United
States Congress.”9
Colorado was sworn in on March 4, 1992, and like
many of his predecessors, he caucused with the Democrats.
Around two-thirty in the afternoon, dressed in “a dark
gray suit and red tie,” Colorado began the briefest tenure
of any Puerto Rican Resident Commissioner since 1932.10
His first priority, he said, was to protect his island’s “very
special relationship” with the mainland. “I look to the
next months as the most important days of my life,” he
told the chamber, “and I will work with you intensively to
better the quality of life in Puerto Rico, in the mainland
United States, in the Caribbean and Central America, and
everywhere else in the world where we may be needed.”11
Colorado was assigned to the Committee on Foreign
Affairs. “With my experience in the Caribbean and as a tax
lawyer, I think I’ve got something to offer Foreign Affairs,”
Colorado said.12
Colorado quickly eased himself into the ongoing
debates over tax policy and the profits generated by Puerto
Rico’s major pharmaceutical companies. In Washington,
the push to delete section 936 from the Internal Revenue
Code was popular among Senators intent on lowering the
cost of medicine, even if they had to strong-arm certain
drug makers along the way.13 But Colorado thought
the proposal would have done little more than punish
Puerto Rican companies and their employees.14 As it
had elsewhere, the cost of health care had skyrocketed in
Puerto Rico, and since Colorado’s main concern was to protect the island’s economic development, he lobbied
the Senate Finance Committee to reform the tax code
so that drug manufacturers across the country would be
affected equally.15 Colorado’s decision to single out the
industry troubled many corporate executives but seemed to
have an impact.16 The general sense in Congress was that
reforming section 936 would do more harm than good,
making it harder for those who opposed the incentives to
take the lead.17 In July, during consideration of the Foreign
Income Tax Rationalization and Simplification Act of 1992
(H.R. 5270), Colorado testified before the House Ways
and Means Committee that any reduction in section 936
“would be an economic calamity for Puerto Rico” since
over the last 40 years, one-third of the jobs on the island
were created because of the shelter policy.18 The bill died in
committee after the hearings.
That summer, Colorado introduced the second of the
two bills he sponsored during his House career. His first
measure, H.R. 5030, sought to facilitate trade between the
mainland and Puerto Rico; introduced in April, it died in
committee.19 His second bill, the Puerto Rico Medicaid
Improvement Act of 1992, would have boosted the island’s
health funding by nearly $30 million. Though it had the
support of the George H. W. Bush administration, and
though Puerto Rico needed more services to combat one of
the country’s highest rates of new AIDS cases, Colorado’s
bill never received a hearing in committee.20
Adding to the hectic pace of his first few months
in office, Colorado decided to run for re-election after
receiving the blessing of the PPD leadership.21 Colorado
spent his weekends stumping across Puerto Rico when the
House was in session, returning to the island to “be out on
the streets” after the House recessed on October 9th.22
As it had in Washington, the fate of section 936
influenced the 1992 election, crystallizing Puerto Rico’s
anxiety about its status. Though Colorado had managed
to protect the island’s tax shelter and the jobs he claimed
it created, those debates appeared likely to begin anew in
the next Congress. For those who favored commonwealth
status, Colorado was again the logical choice for Resident
Commissioner. “One of my objectives is to try to get people to understand what 936 is all about,” he said, citing
the general confusion that was often associated with
insular tax policy. “We need to create a constituency
of people who understand that [936] is positive for
them.”23 But the insurgent statehood movement had
rallied behind Colorado’s PNP challenger, former San
Juan mayor and Puerto Rican governor Carlos Romero-Barceló, who advocated reforming the tax policy to
offset federal appropriations.24
The 1992 election was one of the closest in recent
memory. Despite his ties to the island’s business
community, Colorado raised less money than Romero-Barceló, and despite early polls showing a sizable lead for
Colorado, the incumbent couldn’t match his opponent’s
populist message.25 Colorado countered criticism that
in supporting commonwealth status, he was sacrificing
access to federal aid. “We have great problems, crime,
the economy and health.… These programs will depend
greatly on Washington and there we can get the help
and benefits needed,” he said.26 “We are going to seek
equality,” Colorado stated later, “but without undermining
our economic program and our tax incentives.” On
Election Day he lost by less than 1 percent.27 Almost
immediately, there was talk that statehood and the foreign
policy requirements that come with it would force the
island to “slash ties” with friendly nations in the Caribbean,
damaging relationships Colorado had helped build. With
his experience as Puerto Rico’s secretary of state, Colorado
seemed poised to accept an appointment to a diplomatic
position. “I’d like to work with something that has to do
with Puerto Rico, the United States, the Caribbean and
Latin America, either on the level of the federal government
or an international organization,” he admitted.28
After finishing his term in Washington, Colorado moved
back to Puerto Rico, but the hoped-for diplomatic position
never materialized.29 In 1994 he ran for president of the PPD,
promising to “lead the transformation of Puerto Rico to a new
future.”30 He remained involved in the economic health of
the Caribbean Basin, and in 1996 he accepted the executive
directorship of a private lobbying firm working in Caribbean
and Latin American affairs.31 Around the same time, federal officials began gradually phasing out section 936, effectively
ending the island’s long-standing tax incentives. “It’s the end
and Puerto Rico will suffer,” Colorado said in the summer of
1996.32 “What companies are going to come to Puerto Rico
without 936?”33 He remained a strong supporter of the PPD’s
status platform, and in 1998 celebrated a victory in the procommonwealth
plebiscite vote.34
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
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