Politics & Power Quote by Dick Thornburgh

Thornburgh’s sentence is less a civics lesson than a pressure tactic dressed up as constitutional realism. By starting with the conditional "If U.S. national sovereignty continues", he quietly forecloses alternatives: the U.S. is the sovereign, and any durable arrangement for Puerto Rico has to fit inside that fact. The line is aimed at a familiar limbo - Puerto Rico’s status as neither a state nor a fully sovereign nation - and it frames that limbo as inherently unstable, even illegitimate.

The specific intent is to make statehood sound like the only path to lasting, enforceable self-government. Invoking "permanent 10th Amendment powers" is strategic: it borrows the language of state reserved powers to promise autonomy that is constitutional, not merely statutory. The subtext is a critique of territorial status: if Congress can change the rules unilaterally, then Puerto Rico’s local authority is conditional, not "permanent". Thornburgh is using permanence as a wedge, implying that dignity and security come only with a state’s constitutional standing.

Then comes the democratic gut punch: "as well as voting power in Congress". He links internal self-rule to external representation, reminding readers that Puerto Ricans live under federal law without full federal voice. It’s also a coalition-building move, bundling two different grievances - local control and national representation - into one solution.

Context matters: Thornburgh was a Republican elder statesman and former attorney general, speaking from a governance-first worldview. His phrasing treats Puerto Rico’s status not as cultural identity debate but as an institutional design flaw the Constitution is built to resolve.