Pedro Rosselló

Early life and education

Rosselló González was born in San Juan on April 5, 1944, to Juan Antonio Rosselló Matanzo (1913–2001) and Iris M. González Paz (1919–2012). Rosselló's paternal grandfather Pedro Juan Rosselló Batle migrated in 1902 at the age of 23 from Lloseta, Mallorca, in the Balearic Islands, Spain; his brother Juan had also left for Puerto Rico a year earlier.

After completing his elementary and secondary education at Academia Santa Teresita and Academia del Perpetuo Socorro, both located in San Juan, Rosselló moved to the mainland United States to attend college. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree, magna cum laude at the University of Notre Dame in 1966, as well as several academic and athletic distinctions. After graduation, he continued his studies in medicine at Yale University, which he completed in 1970, also graduating Magna Cum Laude. Later he specialized in general and pediatric surgery at Harvard University. Following his residency at Harvard, he practiced medicine in Puerto Rico while also attending the University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus where he earned a master's degree in Public Health (MPH) in 1981 (also graduating Magna Cum Laude). In 2011, he began studying toward a Doctor of Education in Education Leadership from the University of Turabo, graduating in 2015. During his college years, Rosselló became an avid tennis player that led him to be named the captain of Notre Dame's Men's tennis team, a P.R. 5-time-Mens-Champion, and also to play for Puerto Rico's team in regional championships, including the Central American and Caribbean Games. He was inducted into the Puerto Rico Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004.

Early career

Rosselló started his professional career alternating as an instructor at Harvard Medical School and as an assistant professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus, where he would later become an associate professor.

He became chief of pediatric surgery and later chief surgeon at the University of Puerto Rico Children's Hospital. In 1985, Rosselló was named Health Services Director for the city of San Juan by then Mayor Baltasar Corrada del Río.

Political career

Run for resident commissioner

Rosselló began his political career in 1988 when he ran for the office of Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico, (the island's non-voting observer/representative in the United States Congress) losing to incumbent Jaime Fuster of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD). Nevertheless, he was the candidate from the New Progressive Party (PNP) for whom the most votes were cast in the 1988 elections. This positioned him well to become the party's next leader.

After leading a "Statehood Crusade" throughout the islands of Puerto Rico, in 1991 he became president of the PNP, successfully leading an opposition to a referendum sponsored by the then Puerto Rico's Governor Rafael Hernández Colón. In 1992 he successfully ran for Governor of Puerto Rico, defeating Victoria Muñoz Mendoza of the PPD.

Governor (1993–2001)

As governor, Rosselló launched an anti-crime campaign known as "Mano Dura Contra el Crimen" (literally, "Strong hand against crime") in which the Puerto Rico National Guard was used to assist state police in deterring the ever-increasing crime wave that had begun in the late 1980s. This crime-fighting initiative supposedly managed to reduce violent crimes in half by the time he left office in Jan. 2001, but the figures are disputed due to poor recordkeeping and extensive juking of crime statistics by Puerto Rican police. The U.S. Department of Justice would document these problems with Puerto Rico's police force in a 2011 report. There were also widespread incidents of police brutality, as Rosselló and Police Superintendent Pedro Toledo aggressively deployed riot police against political protests. These protests arose over litany of controversies that marred Rosselló's government, including the privatization of the island's utilities, massive cost overruns and contract disputes on development projects, and several corruption scandals involving top cabinet officials. Among the officials convicted was Edison Misla Aldarondo, who served as speaker of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives during Rosselló's administration. In January 2003, a federal jury convicted Misla Aldarondo of extortion, money laundering and obstruction of justice arising from his use of political influence to assist investors seeking to purchase a government-owned hospital. He was sentenced to 71 months in prison and three years of supervised release, fined $12,500 and ordered to forfeit $147,400. The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld his conviction and sentence in 2007. After Rosselló left office, crime rates either returned to pre-Mano Dura levels or successive governments simply reported more accurate crime statistics. Violent crime declined by a similar extent across the US during that period, but Puerto Rico's crime rate blew past pre-Rosselló levels throughout the 2000s and 2010s. He also worked to eradicate drug traffic in Puerto Rico Publics School on his campaign "Zona Libre de Drogas" (Drug-Free Zone). The Rosselló government was never able to address the extensive penetration by narcotraffickers of the police and local government, and by 2010 Puerto Rico had one of the highest gun homicide rates in the world, a figure largely driven by drug crime. His administration was also characterized for investing in large-scale, controversial infrastructure projects which included a train system, dubbed Tren Urbano, and a new convention center in San Juan, now officially named the Pedro Rosselló Convention Center. His policies also included a push towards reducing the size of government and taking government out of areas in which it should not act as a direct competitor of the private sector. His administration reduced the unemployment to less than 11% in 2000 creating thousands of jobs during his 8 years of government. Most of these government and private sector jobs disappeared in the 2000s as the island's debt problem, largely unaddressed during Rosselló's administration, spiraled out of control and forced later governments to purge civil service rolls and resort to regressive tax measures to raise revenue. Some other large-scale infrastructure projects were the Coliseum of Puerto Rico, the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico, Highway 66, and the SuperAcueducto.

Corruption cases involving administration officials

Rosselló's two terms as governor, from 1993 to 2001, were marked by several corruption investigations involving members of his administration, legislators from the governing New Progressive Party (PNP), municipal officials and government contractors. Contemporary reporting estimated that approximately two dozen officials associated with his administration were eventually convicted. Rosselló was not charged or convicted in connection with these cases.

Among the most prominent cases was that of Víctor Fajardo, who served as secretary of education during Rosselló's administration. Fajardo pleaded guilty to federal charges arising from a scheme in which Department of Education contracts were awarded in exchange for kickbacks. Participating contractors paid approximately ten percent of the value of certain contracts, and Fajardo personally received millions of dollars. He was sentenced to twelve years in federal prison and served approximately ten years before his release.

María de los Ángeles Rivera Rangel, an executive assistant in the governor's office, was convicted in 2002 of conspiracy and extortion. She used her position to provide government contractors with access to agency officials and expedited treatment of permits and other government business in exchange for payments. Her conviction was subsequently upheld in federal appellate proceedings.

Former PNP senator Freddy Valentín later pleaded guilty to conspiracy and extortion charges involving a scheme at the Puerto Rico Department of Housing. Prosecutors accused Valentín of receiving payments in exchange for helping contractors obtain preferential treatment from government agencies. The conduct occurred while he chaired the Senate committee responsible for reviewing executive appointments.

Edison Misla Aldarondo, who served as speaker of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives during part of Rosselló's administration, was convicted by a federal jury in January 2003 of extortion, money laundering and obstruction of justice. The charges arose from his use of political influence to assist investors seeking to purchase a government-owned hospital. He was sentenced to 71 months in prison and three years of supervised release, fined $12,500 and ordered to forfeit $147,400. The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld his conviction and sentence in 2007.

Vieques controversy

In April 1999, a U.S. Navy bomber misfired its missiles at a practice range and struck the main watch-post on the island of Vieques, killing David Sanes, a civilian employee of the Navy. The protests that followed on the small island gathered international attention (see Navy-Vieques protests). Governor Rosselló supported the immediate exit of the Navy, appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee pressing the Senators, among them John Warner and James Inhofe, to immediately take action so that the Navy could withdraw its troops from the island. In 2000, Rosselló and then President Bill Clinton signed an agreement that the Navy would withdraw from Vieques by the year 2003, if voters in Vieques ratified the agreement in a referendum. The agreement included $40 million in public works in Vieques. After Clinton and Rosselló left office, the administration of the next Governor of Puerto Rico, Sila Calderón, rescinded this agreement. Despite political grandstanding from the Calderón administration calling of an earlier withdrawal, the Navy left Vieques on May 1, 2003, the same date President Clinton and Governor Rosselló had agreed upon.

After finishing his term, amid controversy over the growing number of corruption cases involving members of his party and administration, Rosselló moved to the Boston area where he taught on the faculty of the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University. He later moved to Virginia, where he first served as a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and later taught public health at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

In 2003, Rosselló returned to politics and won his party's nomination for the gubernatorial candidacy in a primary election against his successor as PNP leader, Carlos Pesquera. In the 2004 Puerto Rico Elections the PNP won majorities in both houses of the Legislature, the mayorships of 42 of the island's 78 municipalities and the Resident Commissioner post in the U.S. Congress. However, the position of governor was given then to incumbent Resident Commissioner Aníbal Acevedo Vilá who won by razor-thin margin in a highly controversial PR Supreme Court decision that many still hold was politically motivated.

Senator (2005–09)

Prior to assuming office as Senator, Rosselló had announced his intention to remove Senate President Kenneth McClintock and be elected to replace him. An internal power struggle within the New Progressive Party between Rosselló and McClintock led to a split within the NPP Senate delegation in May 2005. After a caucus meeting, eleven of the seventeen senators elected by the New Progressive Party voted for Rosselló, with the other six boycotting the meeting. McClintock and five other senators, Orlando Parga, Luz Arce, Migdalia Padilla, Carlos Díaz, and Jorge de Castro Font, refused to follow the caucus' decision, denying the unanimous consent required by Senate Rules 2 and 6 to remove a president, thus permitting McClintock to remain as Senate president. The party directorate subsequently recommended that McClintock, Parga, and de Castro Font be expelled from the Party, and that Arce, Padilla, and Díaz be censured and prohibited to run for re-election under the party's flag or logo. However, in August 2005 the party's General Assembly only took action to expel de Castro Font, leaving the status of McClintock and the other four senators in limbo after approving in August 2006 a generic censure resolution that did not name any officeholders by name. The sanctions were nullified by San Juan Superior Court Judge Oscar Dávila Suliveres on May 8, 2007. The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, in a 5-to-1 decision, affirmed the lower court decision. Three of the disciplined senators (De Castro, Arce, Padilla) who ran for renomination, except for Díaz, were renominated in the March 2008 primary and were re-elected in the general elections.

Rosselló was able to gain a seat in the Senate of Puerto Rico when Victor Loubriel, an elected first-time district senator representing Arecibo, decided to resign his seat two days after being sworn in. The senator's resignation gave the New Progressive Party a seat it could fill, so Rosselló announced his intentions of filling the vacancy and was selected to the post through an internal party procedure. Rosselló officially assumed duties as a Senator of Puerto Rico on February 13, 2005.

On January 16, 2007, Rosselló led the party caucus in the Senate to a reprimand of two more NPP senators, fellow Arecibo senator José Emilio González and Bayamón senator Carmelo Ríos for voting in favor of a concurrent resolution proposing a constitutional amendment that would turn Puerto Rico's bicameral legislature into a unicameral legislative system, increasing the number of reprimanded caucus members to eight of the total of sixteen elected in 2004. Both González and Rios expressed their lack of concern over the reprimand and were handily renominated in the March 2008 primary and reelected in the November 2008 general election.

Personal life

Rosselló married Irma Margarita "Maga" Neváres on August 9, 1969. They have three sons: Juan Oscar (b. 1971), Luis Roberto (b. 1973), and Ricardo Antonio (b. 1979), and several grandchildren. His youngest son, Ricardo became the 12th Governor of Puerto Rico.

One of Rossello's nephews, Roy Rossello, was a member of boy band Menudo.

Publications

Campos, Cielos y Flamboyanes: Con Pedro Rosselló de 1988 a 1997 – ISBN 1-881714-09-8. Published in 1997.

El Status es el Issue – biography written by Alberto Goachet and authorized by Rosselló. Published on January 12, 2005.

The Unfinished Business of American Democracy – published on October 27, 2005.

El Triunvirato del Terror – published on April 19, 2007