Aníbal Acevedo Vilá

Infobox Governor
name = Aníbal Salvador Acevedo Vilá


caption = Official picture
order = 8^th
office = Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
term_start = January 2, 2005
term_end =
lieutenant =
predecessor = Sila María Calderón
successor = Incumbent
order = 8^th
office = Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
term_start = January 2, 2005
term_end =
lieutenant =
predecessor = Sila María Calderón
successor = Incumbent
state2 = Puerto Rico
district2 = At-large
term2 = 2001–2004
preceded2 = Carlos Romero Barceló
succeeded2 = Luis Fortuño
party2 = Popular Democratic Party, Democratic Party
birth_date = birth date and age|1962|02|13
birth_place = San Juan, Puerto Rico
death_date =
death_place =
spouse = Luisa "Piti" Gándara
profession = Attorney at Law, Juris Doctor, Harvard Law School LL.M.
party = Popular Democratic Party
religion = Roman Catholic

Aníbal Salvador Acevedo Vilá (born February 13, 1962) is the eighth and current Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, a semi-autonomous unincorporated territory of the United States. He is a Harvard University alumnus (LL.M. 1987) and a graduate of the University of Puerto Rico School of Law, where he obtained his Juris Doctor Degree. Acevedo Vilá has held various public service positions in the Puerto Rico territorial government under the Popular Democratic Party, serving as a member of the House of Representatives of Puerto Rico (1993–2001) and Resident Commissioner (2001–2005), before he was sworn in as Governor on January 2, 2005. Acevedo Vilá is also a member of the National Governors Association, the Southern Governors' Association and the Democratic Governors Association, a collaborateur of U.S. Senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign as well as the president of the Popular Democratic Party, one of the three historic parties in Puerto Rico, alongside the New Progressive Party and Puerto Rican Independence Party.

On March 27 2008, Acevedo was charged by the Federal Bureau of Investigation with 19 counts of campaign finance corruption and conspiracy to violate United States federal election laws. [ [http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/03/27/puerto.rico.ap/index.html U.S. charges Puerto Rican governor, 12 others - CNN.com ] ] It is unknown whether Acevedo will resign his position. He subsequently organized a press conference, where he claimed that he is innocent of all charges presented against him. On August 19, 2008, he was charged by the Federal Bureau of Investigation with five more counts.

Early life and education

Acevedo Vilá was born in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, a borough of the San Juan municipal government. Acevedo Vilá attended Colegio San José High School in the same municipality. In 1982, he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science at the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras. He continued his studies in Law at that campus' University of Puerto Rico Law School, the preeminent law school of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, from which he obtained his "Juris Doctor" in 1985, graduating "magna cum laude". After passing the Puerto Rico bar exam, Acevedo Vilá completed a year-long clerkship at the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, where he worked under associate Justice Federico Hernández Denton. In 1987, he obtained a LL.M. degree from Harvard University. From 1987 to 1988, he served as law clerk for the Hon. Levin Hicks Campbell, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston, Massachusetts.

Political career

House of Representatives

Acevedo began his political career in 1989 as Legislative Affairs Advisor to Governor Rafael Hernández Colón. In 1992 he was elected Representative At-Large to the Puerto Rico's House of Representatives. He developed his leadership skills during this period and was reelected in 1996. The following year, his party elected him Minority Leader of the House. In February 1997, Acevedo Vilá was elected President of the Popular Democratic Party.

In 1998, Acevedo Vilá participated in a campaign against the Young Bill, a proposed legislative project in the U.S. Congress that sought to resolve the political status of Puerto Rico by defining each proposed status option and calling for a series of referendums. Although the referendum called for in the project would have included the option for Puerto Rico to remain a Commonwealth, the option would have to be renewed by island voters every ten years, until they opted for independence or statehood.

Although the project was not approved, Puerto Rico's elected officials under Governor Pedro Rosselló organized a non-binding plebiscite to define Puerto Rico's political status, in which Puerto Ricans were given five options: Commonwealth, associated republic, Statehood, Independence from the United States, or "none of the above".

Acevedo and his party believed the definition of the commonwealth option incorrect because it defined the current political status as territorial. His party campaigned for the "none of the above" option, which ultimately garnered the majority of the votes. (See Puerto Rican status referendums for more information.)

Resident Commissioner

In 1999, Acevedo Vilá ran for the post of Resident Commissioner for the Commonwealth after defeating José Hernández Mayoral in their party's primary election. One year after, in the year 2000, Acevedo Vilá defeated Carlos Romero Barceló, the incumbent Resident Commissioner.

In mid-2003, Governor Sila M. Calderón announced she would not seek a second term on the following year's elections. José Hernández Mayoral surfaced as the likely party's candidate for Governor for the 2004 elections. Months following the announcement, Hernández Mayoral widthdrew from the race, citing personal matters, Acevedo Vilá announced he would run for the Governor's seat.

Acevedo won the Puerto Rico General Elections of 2004 by approximately 3,880 votes (0.2 percent of the vote) over former-governor Pedro Rosselló. However, since the margin of victory was so small, a full recount of the elections took place. During the period, Rosselló filed a civil law suit against Acevedo Vilá himself over a dispute of certain ballots that were cast during the elections.

Mixed votes controversy

Acevedo won the office of Governor on the elections of November 2004, defeating former Governor Pedro Rosselló. However, Acevedo's margin of victory was just 3,880 votesndash less than one vote per electoral polling roomndash a result that led to a protracted controversy involving appeals to the United States federal courts and the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico. Acevedo is the first elected governor born after the adoption of the 1952 Constitution of Puerto Rico. The ballots in question were cast by marking the Puerto Rican Independence Party or New Progressive Party (i.e. marking a cross under the emblem of one of these Parties) in addition to placing individual candidate marks (crosses) in favor of Acevedo Vilá as the candidate for governor of the Popular Democratic Party and Roberto Prats, the Popular Democratic Party's candidate for Resident Commissioner. The mark indicating the selection of a political party selects that party's slate of candidates by default, but the voter can also select individual candidates from other parties to replace candidates from the default slate.

The controversy reached the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, which ruled 4-3 that the ballots in question were valid. In its initial opinion, the Supreme Court majority interpretated the challenged ballots as indicating that voters were voting for the PIP as a party for the purposes of stating party affiliation (and for the PIP's default slate) but had decided to move their votes to individual candidates from other party's slates. This type of vote, described as a "mixed vote", is permitted in Rule 50 of the State Election Commission's rules, based on the Commonwealth's Electoral Law as amended in 2004, Title 2, Section 2.001, Subsection 3.cite web |url=http://www.ceepur.org/sobreCee/leyElectoral/edicion2004/pdf/LEY2004.pdf |title=Ley Electoral de Puerto Rico |author= |publisher=Comisión Estatal de Elecciones |language=Spanish] The practice is therefore considered legal and has been published in the official voter's instructions by the State Election Commission for quite some time. This voting option was also allowed and seen in the 1996 and 2000 elections, and had never been contested before, either at the Legislature or by the NPP's Electoral Commissioner. The individual votes for candidates not from the voter's selected party are then deducted from the votes given to the default candidates of the voter's party. The end result is a single vote per candidate.

At the same time, Rosselló challenged the ballots on the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico where District Judge Daniel Domínguez ordered the Puerto Rico Election Commission to count the disputed votes but to not adjudicate them to any candidate until he reached a decision on the merits of the case. Acevedo and his team challenged this ruling and the case moved up to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, where three judges ruled the question of whether or not the ballots were properly cast was not a federal constitutional issue and therefore should be decided by the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico at the Commonwealth level. The Supreme Court affirmed its prior 4-3 decision. On December 28 2004 the recount ended and Acevedo was certified as the winner of the elections.

Governor

Acevedo assumed the post of Governor on January 2, 2005 and has faced many political challenges during his term. This is primarily due to the fact that the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico is controlled by the opposition New Progressive Party (PNP by its acronym in Spanish). In addition, the new Resident Commissioner in Congress is also a member of the PNP, and Acevedo's main political rival, Pedro Rosselló (former Governor or Puerto Rico), managed to gain a seat in the Senate of Puerto Rico after a young first-term Senator from Arecibo unexpectedly resigned shortly after taking the oath of office.

"Shared Government"

Because the executive and the legislative branches of the government are controlled by different political parties, Governor Acevedo Vilá has called his government a "shared government". During the first months of his term, Acevedo concentrated his efforts on trying to reach bipartisan support for his bills and for the nominees of his Cabinet. However, when Acevedo vetoed a legislative bill proposed by the PNP the ideal of a peaceful "shared government" collapsed.

During May 2005, confrontations between the executive and the legislative branches reached a new climax when the Puerto Rico legislature voted to override a veto by Acevedo Vilá, thus becoming the first democratically-elected governor to have a veto overridden by the legislature. Later in June, Acevedo and the legislature were frequently at odds about the budget proposal. The budget proposed by the Governor was not accepted by the leaders of the PNP in the legislature and they proposed a different budget, which Acevedo vetoed in August 2005.

Acevedo has stated his government inherited a difficult financial situation from the previous administration. He announced his administration was working with a deficit of over $400 million. Because of this, Governor Acevedo proposed several measures to control the deficit. Among these were salary reductions for certain government employees, accelerated retirement plans, decrease in cellphone usage, retirement or transfer of excess vehicles from pools, across-the-board cuts of 10% to all agency budgets, a government hiring freeze with strict waiver requirements, and an increase in the prices of water and electricity services in order to bring the rates in line with nationwide rates and reduce the need to subsidize these quasi-public utility companies. He also fiercely lobbied for the approval of a 7% sales tax, going back on his 2004 campaign promise that he would not support a sales tax. In spite of all these measures, he has so far been unable to finish with a balanced budget.

Partial government shut-down

However, new tensions surfaced during April 2006, when Acevedo announced the central government of Puerto Rico did not have enough funds to pay the salary of public employees for the months of May and June. The Governor asked the Legislature to approve a loan of over $500 million dollars so that the government could keep the agencies running. The Senate approved the loan, but the House of Representatives refused to do so. Acevedo then announced that most of the government agencies would shut down beginning May 1, and would remain closed unless the House approved the new loan.

The partial government shutdown lasted two weeks, until Governor Acevedo, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House reached an agreement to end the shutdown. The details of the agreement included the approval of a new loan as well as new fiscal reforms that would impose a sales tax and require the reduction of operational costs of the central government of the island.

However, the process for the approval of the proposed fiscal reforms also involved confrontation between Acevedo and the Legislature. The Speaker of the House originally wanted a sales tax of 5.5% (4% commonwealth sales tax and 1.5% municipal sales tax) and the Governor preferred one of 7% (5.5% commonwealth sales tax and 1.5% municipal sales tax). Amazingly, the House sent an incorrectly drafted bill to the Senate for approval that would give the governor what he wanted. Influential members of the Speaker's own political party noticed the mistake, but chose to do nothing. The Senate immediately approved the bill, and the result was a total sales tax of 7%.

When the Speaker of the House realized the mistake he made, he desperately sought to recall the bill and make corrections. However, the Governor argued the legislative process was over when both houses had approved the bill. After the Speaker refused to send the bill to Acevedo for his signature, the Governor sought a "mandamus" from the Supreme Court to order the Speaker to send the bill for his signature. The Speaker at one point openly stated he would not obey a decision of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico ordering him to turn over the bill, but later recanted under intense public and party pressure. On July 2006 the high court, by a 5-1 majority, ordered the Speaker to send the bill to the governor. The original bill was finally signed by Acevedo the next day. The municipal sales tax went into effect immediately, and the state sales tax began on November 15.

Controversies since assuming office

During the 2004 political campaign for the governorship, Acevedo Vilá purchased $40,000 in business suits for his use in television appearances, among other activities. The purchases were paid for in cash provided by PDP supporters, a legitimate "representation expense" according to the PDP leadership. To further complicate the matter, the governor failed to report the gift on his tax returns. The opposition contends that since the suits were purchased using PDP funds, it constitutes an illegal campaign expenditure and possibly an act of bribery, money laundering and tax evasion. The local Justice Department declined to file any charges regarding the matter.

A Philadelphia healthcare contractor is claimed to have used a number of names to make illegal campaign contributions to the campaigns of several politicians, including Acevedo Vilá's, during the 2000 political campaign, allegedly to ensure the granting of government contracts.cite news |first=Carrie |last=Budoff |title=Phila. ties in probe of Puerto Rico race |work= |publisher=Philadelphia Inquirer |page= |date=June 22, 2006 |accessdate=2006-06-22] This has been the subject of several subpoenas from federal investigators. Governor Acevedo has denied any wrongdoing related to this issue.

Federal investigations and indictment

During the period of September–October 2006, several news sources have reported that a federal grand jury is investigating donations made to the Acevedo Vilá campaign fund during 2001 and 2002 by the aforementioned contractor and a Puerto Rico based associate. News sources indicate the donations made by the duo to the Acevedo Vilá campaign fund during that period could total $68,000. Since last summer, several key members of Acevedo Vilá's Cabinet have been either interviewed by the FBI or called to testify before the Grand Jury investigating the Governor, including Fortaleza Chief of Staff and former Economic Development and Commerce Secretary, Jorge Silva Puras, Press Secretary Juanita Colombani, former Housing Secretary Ileana Echegoyen, former Health Services Administrator Nancy Vega, and former Fortaleza Chief of Staff Aníbal José Torres.cite news |first=Yanira |last=Hernández |title=Gobernador Listo ante pugna de los donativos |publisher=El Nuevo Dia |page= |date=October 4, 2006 |accessdate=2006-10-04]

On March 27 2008, Vilá was formally charged in the long-running public corruption probe, along with 12 other people. The 13 are accused of running a conspiracy to illegally raise money to pay off Acevedo's campaign debts in 2000. [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23825737/ Puerto Rico gov charged in campaign probe] He was not arrested. Acting U.S. Attorney Rosa Emilia Rodríguez said, "The governor will be permitted to turn himself in deference to his position."cite news |first=Manuel |middle=Ernesto |last=Rivera |title=Puerto Rican Governor Faces 19 Counts |work= |publisher=Associated Press |page= |date=March 27, 2008 |accessdate=2007-03-27]

The following day, March 28 2008, Acevedo was released without having to pay bail nor give up his passport.cite web |url=http://www.primerahora.com/noticia/otras/noticias/libre_sin_fianza_anibal_acevedo_vila/173083 |title=Libre sin fianza Aníbal Acevedo Vilá |author=Michelle Estrada Torres |publisher=Primera Hora |language=Spanish |date=2008-03-28 |accessdate=2008-03-28] Acevedo Vilá was allowed to travel out of the island so long as he informs the court prior to doing so.

On August 19, 2008, the federal agency filed a second five count federal Grand Jury indictment.

Throughout all the investigation and indictment process, Acevedo Vilá has stated repeatedly that he is innocent, and has claimed that everything is politically motivated to harm his career.

Obama endorsement

Before his first federal indictment, Acevedo Vilá endorsed Democratic Presidential Candidate senator Barack Obama after Obama wrote a letter saying that he would accept the Constitutional Assembly as one of the mechanisms to define Puerto Rico's political future.

Personal life

Aníbal Acevedo Vilá is the son of former judge and senator Salvador Acevedo and Mrs. Elba Vilá. He is married to Luisa Gándara, with whom he has two children: Gabriela and Juan Carlos.cite web |url=http://www.fortaleza.gobierno.pr/anibal01.htm |title=Biografía Aníbal S. Acevedo Vilá |author= |publisher=Fortaleza Gobierno PR |language=Spanish |date= |accessdate=]

References

See also

* List of famous Puerto Ricans - Governors
* Young Bill
* Governor of Puerto Rico
* Popular Democratic Party
* New Progressive Party
* Puerto Rican Independence Party

External links

wikinewshas|News related to this article
*
*
* [http://www.fortaleza.gobierno.pr/ La Fortalezandash Official Governor's Website] ndash in Spanish.
* [http://www.ppdpr.net Popular Democratic Party] ndash in Spanish.
* [http://www.cidob.org/es/documentacion/biografias_lideres_politicos/america_central_y_caribe/puerto_rico/anibal_acevedo_vila Biography by CIDOB Foundation] - in Spanish
* [http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/11530066.html City probe could ensnare Puerto Rico's governor]
* [http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2008/March/crm-indictment-03272008.pdf PDF Copy of the Federal Indictment]
* [http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2008/August/08-crm-733.html US Department of Justice Press release announcing second indictment]