The Unelected Board Governing Puerto Rico Will Continue to Operate in Secret
The Supreme Court just ruled that the antidemocratic board overseeing Puerto Rico’s debt repayment and dictating its budget can continue to operate in secrecy. After 2019’s popular revolt, the board’s existence likely depends on it.
A protester holds a sign against the Puerto Rico Financial Oversight and Management Board during a demonstration in New York on September 30, 2016. (John Taggart / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The US territory of Puerto Rico has been bankrupt since 2016 and subject to the antidemocratic Financial Oversight and Management Board (FOMB) put in place by Barack Obama’s administration. Touted during the 1950s and ’60s as a beacon of democracy and economic success whose inalterable “compact” with the United States had vanquished colonialism, the island is today largely governed by a few mainland board members and a New York federal judge who control Puerto Rico’s local government.
Still, many Puerto Ricans thought that they at least had a right to get information about what the FOMB was up to. Everyone loves transparency, after all — everyone, apparently, except the US Supreme Court. In its May 11 decision in Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico v. Centro de Periodismo Investigativo, Inc., the court held that Puerto Ricans do not have the basic right to view the board’s records. It did so in an opinion written and joined by its liberal wing, including Justice Sonia Sotomayor and recent appointee Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Broken Promesas
Access to information about the FOMB is crucial for holding it accountable and resisting the neoliberal tide in Puerto Rico. The board was created in a bizarre law — known cynically as PROMESA, or “promise” — that allowed Congress to tell the president whom to appoint through candidate short lists.
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