Puerto Rico: The process works, so far
Miraculously, the bill recites the constitutional authority on which it rests: not the Bankruptcy Clause of Article I, but the Territories Clause of Article IV (which authorizes Congress to make “all needful rules and regulations” for the Territories). That turns out to matter because Congress could quite probably not do to states, under the Bankruptcy Clause or any other clause, what it’s here doing to Puerto Rico: establish an Oversight Board, patterned after a board established back when for the District of Columbia and urged in congressional testimony and on this site by the indispensable Alex Pollock, with comprehensive authority to revamp the place, control its budget, and propose a debt reorganization plan to a federal district court. All that, and more, without the local government’s consent and over its objections.
