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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Puerto Ricans have endorsed U.S. statehood for the Caribbean island but also ousted the pro-statehood governor in a close election. Gov. Luis Fortuno conceded defeat Wednesday to his main challenger after concluding there were not enough outstanding ballots to close the gap with his main challenger, Alejandro Garcia Padilla. The margin in Tuesday's vote was less than 1 percent. "Now it's time for us to come together as one people. The campaign is over," Fortuno said in a news conference.

TAMPA - The following are the remarks as prepared for delivery by Luis Fortuño, Governor of Puerto Rico. The actual remarks may differ. The Hon. Luis Fortuño Governor of Puerto Rico (Remarks as Prepared for Delivery) August 29, 2012 Thank you. Buenas noches Puerto Rico! Buenas noches America! As a proud American serving the nearly 4 million American citizens of Puerto Rico, I am honored to be with you tonight. We gather to celebrate the hopes and dreams of every American. We all believe in the greatness of this nation, and this greatness lies within each of us. Hard-working Americans...

The newest names on the Tampa convention speaker list, from RNC Chairman Reince Priebus's Twitter feed: Thrilled to announce that @luisfortuno51, @GovWalker, @tedcruz, @pambondi and @samolens will all be speaking at the @GOPconvention! Bondi and Olens are the attorneys general of Florida and Georgia, respectively, and both endorsed Mitt Romney in the GOP primaries. There's nothing surprising about the fact that Scott Walker would address the GOP convention, and Luis Fortuno and Ted Cruz are two of the Republican Party's young Latino stars. Still no sign of Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich ...

Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno (R) is a sleeper pick for the No. 2 spot on the 2012 presidential ticket, according to GOP strategists. Republican front-runner Mitt Romney has kept his cards close to his chest on vice presidential prospects, saying that it would be “presumptuous” to think about it before winning the nomination. But in a recent interview with Newsmax, he described Fortuno as “a solid conservative and a firm leader.” He also dubbed Fortuno “one of the great leaders of our party.” Republican strategists say that whomever Romney picks, the selection has to resonate with Hispanic voters. Sen....

Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno (R) is a sleeper pick for the No. 2 spot on the 2012 presidential ticket, according to GOP strategists. Republican front-runner Mitt Romney has kept his cards close to his chest on vice presidential prospects, saying that it would be “presumptuous” to think about it before winning the nomination. But in a recent interview with Newsmax, he described Fortuno as “a solid conservative and a firm leader.” He also dubbed Fortuno “one of the great leaders of our party.”

But there is another intriguing possibility. Luis Fortuño is the 51-year-old governor of Puerto Rico, whose four million people have all been U.S. citizens since 1952, making their governor eligible to become vice president. Mr. Fortuño made history in 2004 by being elected the island's lone delegate to the U.S. House as a conservative and followed up that feat in 2008 by being elected governor with the largest margin of any predecessor since the 1960s. His party not only won control of the legislature by historic margins but also won the power to name three supreme court judges, giving that...

Residents of Puerto Rico are U.S. citizens, but they get a say in who should be president only by voting in the Democratic and Republican party primaries. Because Puerto Rico is a territory, not a state, Puerto Ricans are not allowed to vote in the general election. The political parties, on the other hand, can set their own nominating procedures, and on occasion Puerto Rico becomes a primary battleground. Four years ago, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama fought hard for Puerto Rico's delegates. This year, it's the Republican primary on March 18 — and the territory's 23 delegates — that...

Cape Canaveral, Florida (CNN) - Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno has endorsed Mitt Romney, in a boon to the GOP candidate's efforts to woo Florida's Latino voters ahead of Tuesday's primary. Puerto Rico's top official will campaign with Romney at an event Friday evening in Orlando. Earlier in the day, Romney said he would support a move by Puerto Rico towards statehood, and referenced Fortuno's "passionate" support for that process. "I expect the people of Puerto Rico will decide, like he feels, to become a state," Romney told a cheering audience at the Hispanic Leadership Network conference. "I can tell...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico--The gridlocked members of the congressional Supercommittee should grab President Obama and decamp to a tropical island. Specifically, they should visit Puerto Rico, where a courageous leader is using free-market reforms to reinvigorate this recently moribund U.S. territory. We are clearly pro-growth, says Republican Governor Luis G. Fortuño. And we do not apologize for that. Fortuño last Tuesday hosted a delegation of conservative luminaries who floated into San Juan aboard the Holland America Lines MS Eurodam, site of National Review magazines latest Caribbean cruise. Fortuño was inaugurated on January 2, 2009, just 18 days before Obama. Since...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Since the congressional supercommittee appears unable, or unwilling, to take a lesson from Indiana or Virginia -- where Republican governors have made spending cuts and delivered budget surpluses without damaging the social safety net -- members might wish to consider Puerto Rico and what its governor, Luis Fortuno, is doing. Fortuno is Puerto Rico's first Republican governor in 42 years. In 2009 when he took office, the U.S. territory had a $3.3 billion budget deficit. Three years earlier, Moody's Investors Service downgraded the commonwealth's bond rating to junk status while in deep recession. Like Virginia...

The media spent so much time covering union protests in Wisconsin, that I mostly missed a much bigger protest over much bigger (17,000 government workers fired!) cuts in Puerto Rico. When Luis Fortuno became governor in 2009, Puerto Rico's economy was a mess. Or, as he told me: "Not just a mess. We didn't have enough money to meet our first payroll." But he avoided bankruptcy by getting an emergency loan, and immediately cutting Puerto Rico's government. For once, government shrank. Fortuno and the conservative legislature: •Laid off 17,000 government workers •Froze all salaries in government •Cut government spending by...

After months of work and anticipation, [Puerto Rico] Gov. [Luis] Fortuño finally unveiled his administration’s comprehensive tax reform. At the center of the measure is an across-the-board reduction in the individual tax bracket that would result in a 49-percent overall savings in six years. Corporate reductions are slated to reach 30 percent. The cornerstone of the tax modification is the reduction of the income tax brackets. People making less than $20,000 would not pay any tax. The bracket of those making $20,001 to $30,000 would be taxed 7 percent. From $30,001 to $70,000, the allocation would be 14 percent. The...

A Republican governor — a very Republican governor — has an idea for solving one of his party’s conundrums. The party should listen to Luis Fortuno, the Reaganite who resides in Puerto Rico’s executive mansion. Conservatives need a strategy for addressing the immigration issue without alienating America’s largest and most rapidly growing minority. Conservatives believe the Southern border must be secured before there can be “comprehensive” immigration reform that resolves the status of the 11 million illegal immigrants. But this policy risks making Republicans seem hostile to Hispanics. Fortuno wants Republicans to couple insistence on border enforcement with support for...

In an exclusive interview for TheAmericano.com Newt Gingrich talks to the Governor of Puerto Rico about the economy, the Puerto Rico Democracy Act of 2010, and more. Speaker Gingrich: Let's start with the challenge you faced when you became governor and the economy and what you've done since then. Governor Fortuño: Certainly. When I became governor, we had been experiencing the worst and deepest recession since the 30s. It commenced two full years before it started in the rest of the country. We're starting to come out of it. Secondly, I faced the largest state budget deficit, proportionally speaking, in...

Newsmax’s recent cruise through the Caribbean was not only an adventure but also a learning experience. One of the highlights of our trip was our stop in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and our visit with the Republican governor of the territory, Luis Fortuno. Dick Morris and I, as well as a group of our hosts, left our cruise ship docked in Old San Juan to visit Fortuno at the nearby La Fortaleza mansion, from which he governs the tropical island. Fortuno is a fascinating man whom we found to be not only charismatic but also a person who abides in...

(English-language translation) San Juan - Governor Luis G. Fortuño expressed gratitude today for the U.S. House of Representatives' modifications that improve the federal healthcare reform dispositions regarding the territories, while at the same time acknowledging that "work needs to be done". The Puerto Rican Governor maintained that the federal healthcare reform reconciliation bill approved last night by the federal House contains substantial improvements in the treatment and the assigning of funds the island will receive. Prior to the vote, the Governor had stated that the legislation would involve assigning $8.624 billion in Medicaid funds to the island over the next...

(English-language translation) SAN JUAN – Senator Eduardo Bhatia publicly called on Governor Luis Fortuño on Monday to reveal which Republican congressmen support including Puerto Rico in federal healthcare reform. The demand comes in the wake of another trip by the Governor to the federal capital and following unsuccessful efforts and multiple trips by the Governor to secure Puerto Rico's inclusion in the largest public-health program to be considered in Washington since the creation of Medicare. “Fortuño is a Republican only for his own convenience. After months of cheap talk and ridiculous threats against President Barack Obama, what the Governor has...

In light of the rampant wave of killings that continues this year and a deficit of police officers on the state police force, Gov. Fortuño passed an executive order calling on the U.S. National Guard to lend 1,000 officers to work with the island’s police force until the government can train enough police officers to bridge the gap. The governor glossed over the issue that the move could indicate a failure of the commonwealth’s crime fighting plans, instead saying, “The initiatives we have adopted until now in our fight against crime have begun to give results … but these have...

Implementing tax breaks for the poor and middle class will be the New Progressive Party’s [NPP's] first order of business this year, Gov. Fortuño said after meeting Tuesday with the NPP legislative conference at La Fortaleza [the Governor's Mansion]. Fortuño said he expects to pass reform legislation during the second half of this year and taxpayers will first receive tax cuts in 2011 and more in 2012. The reform will eliminate income taxes for families that earn less than $20,000 annually, Fortuño and House Speaker Jenniffer González promised. The tax cuts for will be fueled by “fostering work, rewarding success...

Gov. Luis Fortuño said Tuesday it is not time to stage another general strike, but rather for all sectors to work together to jumpstart the economy. “I don’t think this is the moment to be halting the government, or much less the economy of Puerto Rico. We have much more to gain working together and that is what I feel we should do,” Fortuño said during a press conference when asked about a warning by the Todo Puerto Rico por Puerto Rico Coalition that another general strike was in the works. The Todo Puerto Rico por Puerto Rico Coalition on...