Described as “a serious tennis player and a voracious
reader,” Jaime Fuster brought a scholarly
demeanor to Capitol Hill during his House
tenure of a little less than two terms.1 With his academic
background, Fuster focused his legislative energies on
educational opportunities in Puerto Rico and the mainland.
But he spent most of his time in the House vigorously
defending the Estado Libre Asociado (Free Associated
State, or ELA)—the commonwealth relationship between
the United States and Puerto Rico—against advocates for
statehood, whom he accused of indulging in “rhetorical
flourishes and pie-in-the-sky prophecies.”2 As the first
Puerto Rican chairman of the Congressional Hispanic
Caucus (CHC), Fuster appreciated the growing caucus’s
diversity. “We Hispanics are peoples of all colors and all
hues,” he boasted.3 “We Mexican-Americans, Cuban-
Americans, Puerto Ricans and others—we are all, first
and foremost, Hispanic brothers and sisters with a common
heritage, with common problems and with common
challenges. Far more binds us together than separates us.”4
Jaime B. Fuster was born on January 12, 1941, in
Guayama, on the southeast coast of Puerto Rico. Fuster
attended Saint Anthony High School in Guayama,
graduating as valedictorian in 1958.5 He earned a B.A.,
magna cum laude, from Notre Dame University in South
Bend, Indiana, in 1962. He earned a J.D. from the
Universidad de Puerto Rico in 1965 and a specialized postlaw
degree from Columbia University a year later. Fuster
began working as a law professor at the Universidad de
Puerto Rico in 1966. He received a fellowship in law and
the humanities from Harvard from 1973 to 1974. When
he returned to Puerto Rico, he served as dean of his law
school through 1978. Throughout his tenure, Fuster took a
particular interest in interamerican policy throughout Latin
America, traveling extensively throughout the region.6 In 1980 he left the university to serve as a U.S. deputy
assistant attorney general. The next year he started a fouryear
tenure as president of Pontificia Universidad Católica
de Puerto Rico. Fuster married Mary Jo Zalduondo, and
the couple raised two children, María Luisa and Jaime
José.7
In the wake of the 1980 election—in which the
U.S. Supreme Court decided the makeup of the Puerto
Rican house of representatives after two years of electoral
dispute—the 1984 election appeared to be another close
referendum on the island’s status in relation to the United
States.8 Three parties—the Partido Popular Democrático
(Popular Democratic Party, or PPD), the Partido Nuevo
Progresista (New Progressive Party, or PNP), and the
Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño (Independence
Party, or PIP)—represented three respective options for
Puerto Rican status: commonwealth status, statehood, and
independence. Fuster accepted the PPD nomination for
Resident Commissioner after PNP Resident Commissioner
Baltasar Corrada del-Río declared his candidacy for mayor
of San Juan. Running unopposed in the PPD primary in
June, Fuster sought the post of Resident Commissioner as
a political ally of gubernatorial candidate Rafael Hernández
Colón’s. He vowed to “improve the over-all tenor of Puerto
Rican relations in Washington,” which he believed had been
“bruised” by incumbent PNP Governor Carlos Romero-Barceló’s accusations that Puerto Rico remained a “colony.”
Fuster’s primary objectives were to defend the ELA and to
maintain the flow of federal dollars to the island.9
Fuster and the PPD had an advantage when the PNP
split over a crisis of leadership. After insurgents attempted
to remove PNP leader Carlos Romero-Barceló from power,
they were humiliated by Romero-Barceló and his fellow
penepeistas (PNP members) at the Party assembly in
November 1982. The insurgents subsequently formed the Partido Renovación Puertorriqueña (Puerto Rican Renewal
Party), presenting their own candidates for governor, the
Puerto Rican legislature, and Resident Commissioner.
With a turnout of nearly 90 percent of registered voters,
Fuster won the Resident Commissioner position, garnering
48.5 percent of the vote—a slim victory over Nelson
Famadas of the PNP, who won 45.4 percent. The race
would have been even closer had Partido Renovación
Puertorriqueña candidate Angel Viera-Martinez not
siphoned off 2.3 percent of the vote. PIP candidate
Francisco Catala took 3.8 percent.10 The PPD swept the
election, winning the gubernatorial contest and a majority
in both the Puerto Rican house and senate in addition to
Fuster’s victory.11
Upon his arrival in Washington, Fuster won seats on
the Committee on the Interior and Insular Affairs and the
Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs. In
the following Congress, he traded his seat on the Banking
panel for a seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee. In
the 101st Congress (1989–1991), he also picked up a
seat on the Education and Labor Committee.12 Unable
to vote in the House, Fuster depended on friends and
fellow Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) members,
frequently reminding his colleagues that he represented
three million Americans. Representative Robert Garcia,
who served a South Bronx district in New York City with
a large Puerto Rican population, proved to be Fuster’s
closest congressional ally. “In some kind of crazy way, I
consider myself something of a representative of Puerto
Rico,” Garcia once remarked.13 Fuster regularly submitted
editorials and letters to the editor in response to coverage
of Puerto Rican politics in major U.S. newspapers.14
On September 8, 1988, the CHC unanimously elected
Fuster chairman, a post in which he served from 1988 to
1989. He became the first Puerto Rican to chair the caucus,
which consisted at that time of 13 Hispanic members and
67 dues-paying non-Hispanic members. “It is … a tribute
to Puerto Rico, and I look forward to this new assignment,”
Fuster noted in a caucus press release.15 As chairman, Fuster
focused on education, employment, and affordable housing
for many of the caucus’s urban constituents. CHC members also focused on increasing American exports across the
southern border of the United States.16 “Every year we’re
more successful than the year before,” Fuster said of the
caucus’s work. “When we work together we can have a fairly
strong influence despite our size.”17
Fuster’s legislative agenda was focused southward
toward his home in the Caribbean. He supported the
Caribbean Basin Initiative, which called for the duty-free
entry of goods from countries in the Caribbean Sea.18
He also backed aspects of the 1986 Omnibus Drug Act
that provided additional radar coverage for Puerto Rico
to fight drug trafficking.19 He was barred from serving as
an election monitor in Haiti in November 1987 because
he was a congressional signatory to an October 14 letter
accusing the government in Port-au-Prince of human rights
abuses.20 The Haitian Foreign Affairs Ministry returned the
letter, unopened, on November 29, 1987.21
Education was also key for Fuster, especially given
his academic background. “Not until we have a better
understanding of ourselves can we move forward,” he said
regarding his education initiatives.22 Fuster spearheaded
a plan to make Puerto Rico the educational and training
hub for Central America and the Caribbean by introducing
the Caribbean Basin Scholarship Act (H.R. 3806) in
1988; the bill would authorize the creation of 1,000
scholarships for students earning higher degrees at Puerto
Rican institutions. After the House scheduled hearings
on the bill in the Subcommittee on Human Rights and
International Organizations under the House Foreign
Affairs Committee, Fuster observed that the attention was
“a sign of American recognition of the maturity of Puerto
Rico’s leadership and … of the enduring nature of Puerto
Rico’s accomplishments economically and politically.” In
addition, Fuster pointed out, the program would enhance
American leadership in the region.23
Fuster and his CHC colleagues advocated bilingual
education in the United States. “We want to make sure
that Hispanics who don’t speak English will have the
opportunity in some stages at least to learn in Spanish,
while they pick up enough English language skills to be
able to do well,” he noted. “The goal eventually is to fully integrate in social life in English.”24 When the Puerto Rican
legislature submitted a bill making Spanish the island’s
official language, thereby endangering U.S. support for the
commonwealth, Fuster was unapologetic. “We should not
delude someone in Congress over who we are and what we
are. We are a Spanish-speaking country. If this happens to
give people … more concern, so be it,” he said.25
The need to educate other Members about Puerto Rico’s
unique relationship with the United States dominated
Fuster’s career. The Resident Commissioner grew
frustrated with the general lack of knowledge about the
island in Congress, a situation he vowed to change. “The
main problem I have,” he lamented, “is not only the
lack of information [others have about the island], but
[that] Puerto Rico is not in the mainstream of mainland
concerns, but we are part of the United States.”26
Like the tenures of previous Resident Commissioners,
Fuster’s was dominated by Puerto Rico’s status. Despite
his frustration at not having a vote in Congress, Fuster
firmly supported the ELA over statehood.27 “At first
glance, you might think that the people of Puerto Rico
are somehow being held back from exercising their right
to have the island become the 51st State,” he noted in
the Congressional Record. “That is simply not true.…
It is appalling that some Members of Congress would
want to open up this thorny and explosive issue when the
people of Puerto Rico themselves do not.” 28 Fuster warned
against “toying with Puerto Rico” and in the late 1980s
bemoaned a spate of bills seeking adjustments in Puerto
Rico’s relationship with the United States.29 “Pandering
to political currents with one upmanship in submitting
bills about Puerto Rico’s status is not the way to assist
the people of Puerto Rico to exercise their right to selfdetermination,”
he said, accusing his colleagues of using
Puerto Rican issues as a political tool.30
Despite Fuster’s warning, political maneuverings both
on the island and on the mainland pushed Puerto Rico
toward a plebiscite on status. In 1988, PPD Governor
Hernández Colón won re-election with a slim plurality,
but for the fourth consecutive time, no candidate won
more than 50 percent of the vote in the gubernatorial race, indicating a divided electorate.31 Fuster, too, won re-election
with another narrow plurality, taking 49 percent over PNP
candidate Pedro J. Rosselló, who won 47 percent, and PIP
candidate Luis Pio Sanchez Longo.32 Both the PNP and
the PIP showed their strength on the island. The PNP won
a larger swath of the municipal election, and the PIP, for the
first time, triumphed in a mayoral election when Santos (El
Negro) Ortiz won in the municipality of Cabo Rojo.33 The
two minority parties took advantage of the close elections
to create an alliance with the pro-statehood PNP.34
At the same time, President George H. W. Bush shined
a spotlight on Puerto Rican statehood in Washington. The
President surprised observers by announcing his support
for a self-determination plebiscite in Puerto Rico during
his February 9, 1989, State of the Union address. Bush’s
Senate ally, J. Bennett Johnston of Louisiana, drafted S.
712 in response. Johnston chaired the Senate Energy and
Natural Resources Committee, which had direct oversight
over Puerto Rico. His self-executing bill put the three “wellformed”
options—continuation under commonwealth
status, statehood, and independence—to a vote in Puerto
Rico whose results would take effect immediately.35 The
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources favorably
reported the bill to the Senate on August 2, 1989.
Fuster complained that advocates presented statehood
as a magical solution to Puerto Rican economic problems.
“Statehood is portrayed as the panacea for the many
complex and intractable social and economic problems
that Puerto Rico has suffered for centuries,” he explained.
“Puerto Ricans are being told that with statehood,
unemployment will nearly disappear, education and
healthcare will be of the highest quality possible, our local
roads will be like the best interstate highways, there will
be no homeless, even crime will diminish. We in Puerto
Rico have a right to know whether or not the United
States Congress shares these alluring expectations about the
bonanza that allegedly will accompany statehood.”36
Delegate Ron de Lugo of the Virgin Islands—Chairman
of the Committee on Territories—countered the Senate bill
by introducing his own version (H.R. 4765) collaborating
closely with Fuster, on May 9, 1990. The bill authorized a “non-binding referendum” and required Congress—
specifically, the House Interior and Senate Energy
Committees—to follow up on the results and enact the
status chosen by voters.37 The House legislation cobbled
together the disparate interests of the island’s multiple
political parties as well as the various desires of mainland
lawmakers, leading Fuster to label the bill “imperfect.” The
compromises “do not all share the sense of purpose and
high-mindedness that should have prevailed,” he noted.38
Yet he supported the House version of the bill—with
increased congressional oversight—over the Senate version.
“It is crucial to the plebiscite process that the Congress
spell out to the voters of Puerto Rico precisely what it
is prepared to offer under each of the three formulas for
political status,” he wrote in an opinion piece for the
Washington Post. “Otherwise, the whole thing could be an
empty gesture.”39 The House passed de Lugo’s bill by voice
vote on October 10. It was the first time since the creation
of the ELA in 1952 that a referendum on Puerto Rican
status had cleared either chamber.40
Reaching a compromise between the House and Senate
versions of the bill proved “an uphill battle,” Fuster noted
in June 1990, and he feared the legislation would not pass
in time. “It’s going to be dicey. If we have one more delay,
that’s it,” he warned. 41 Lobbying over the bill became
increasingly intense, with a deadlock between the two
chambers. More than 70 U.S. companies doing business
on the island—and enjoying tax breaks—formed the
Puerto Rico U.S.A. Foundation, which fought the Bush
administration’s pro-statehood stance.42 Advocates for
ELA and advocates for statehood hired more than a dozen
lobbying firms that hit Capitol Hill “with the force of
Hurricane Hugo,” according to the Wall Street Journal.43
But Johnston was dissatisfied with the House version of the
bill and refused to take action on it, effectively killing the
measure at the end of the 101st Congress. “The Senate’s
position is that we have waited 30 years. Another year is
not going to matter,” Johnston said.44
Though de Lugo re-introduced his plebiscite bill on the
first day of the new Congress, the momentum from the
previous Congress had been lost. Puerto Rican officials were wary of holding a vote on status during 1992, an
island-wide election year, because they feared the plebiscite
would likely promote a charged and disruptive atmosphere.
Cost was also an issue. After a 10 to 10 vote in the Senate
Energy Committee on legislation equivalent to that
promoted in the 101st Congress, Johnston again admitted
defeat, despite pressure from President Bush to continue
pursuing the plebiscite. Acknowledging inadequate GOP
support, de Lugo did not push his legislation further.45
“I’m more convinced than ever that there is going to be
no plebiscite,” Fuster noted.46 “There is a stalemate in
Congress, and we don’t see any signs that it’s going to
change,” he added. “The people of Puerto Rico have been
left dangling with great expectations. We’re saying ‘Take us
seriously or let us be.’”47
Fuster’s final term in the House was truncated. In early
1992, Governor Hernández Colón nominated him as
an associate justice on the Puerto Rican supreme court.
Confirmed by a 14 to 5 decision in the island’s senate,
Fuster resigned from the House on March 3, 1992.48 He
served as an associate justice until his death on December
3, 2007, in his home in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico.49
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
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