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Complaint filed against Rep. Arroyo

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Illinois

Juan Calderon, chief operating officer for the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, filed a complaint against Assistant Illinois House Majority Leader Luis Arroyo with the state’s legislative inspector general on Thursday.

Calderon alleges that Arroyo threatened to cut funding for his and other community groups who opposed Arroyo’s resolution in favor of Puerto Rican statehood. Calderon says he wants Puerto Rico to remain a U.S. commonwealth. […]

“I received a threatening call from the representative,” Calderon wrote in the complaint. “Mr. Arroyo said in no uncertain terms that he noted all of us who spoke against his resolution and promised that there would be retribution. In other words, community-based organizations with links to those who disagreed with him in public will not receive state-funded grants.” […]

“As he is planning to purchase a retirement home on the Island, he hopes to curry favor, or in his precise words, ‘win brownie points’ with the [pro-statehood] administration, which he expects will help him secure a better deal on a better home to enjoy during his retirement.”

Whoa.

However, Rep. Arroyo called the allegations a “total fabrication” and said he’s currently building a retirement house in Florida, not Puerto Rico.

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Apr 3, 17 @ 12:30 pm

Comments

What! he’s not going to spend his retirement years in this great state?

Comment by spidad60 Monday, Apr 3, 17 @ 12:41 pm
Arroyo allegedly threatened to pull state funded grants? Oh, you mean the grant I haven’t received funding on in over two years? You’re gonna pull that grant? That’s quite the threat.

Comment by Henry Francis Monday, Apr 3, 17 @ 1:01 pm
No grants to pull.

Comment by walker Monday, Apr 3, 17 @ 1:03 pm
He either made the threat, or didn’t. Whether that threat was real or not is beside the point.

Arroyo is moving to Florida or Puerto Rico and not staying in Illinois, the state he’s “helped” guide to its current condition for years. That’s THE real takeaway.

Comment by Deft Wing Monday, Apr 3, 17 @ 1:21 pm
===Arroyo is moving to Florida or Puerto Rico and not staying in Illinois, the state he’s “helped” guide to its current condition for years. That’s THE real takeaway.===

Really?

I didn’t know if you served in the General Assembly you could never move out of state or retire elsewhere even if there may or may not be other circumstances to predicate the move.

Are you saying - Deft Wing -, “If you serve in the GA you can’t move out of state for any reason after that service?”

That’s fun.

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Apr 3, 17 @ 1:26 pm
I can only hope that Arroyo was smoking a cigar and wearing a tommy bahama shirt when me made the alleged threat

Comment by Boone's is back Monday, Apr 3, 17 @ 1:44 pm
Doing more with less all on a state legislators salary. amazaing

Comment by Ed Monday, Apr 3, 17 @ 1:51 pm
DW, you don’t know any retired people who spend half the year in Florida or AZ, half the year back up north?

Comment by wordslinger Monday, Apr 3, 17 @ 1:59 pm
Did anybody else notice that before the finals of the World Baseball Classic that they played the national anthems of both teams and that Puerto Rico has their own national anthem? I thought they were a part of the USA

Comment by BIG R. Ph. Monday, Apr 3, 17 @ 2:40 pm
I’ve dealt with Leader Arroyo. This would not shock me.

Comment by Anon Monday, Apr 3, 17 @ 2:55 pm
While I do not know the details of this particular interaction, I’ve witnessed personally Rep Arroyo act disrespectfully towards constituents, so this doesn’t sound of the range of possibilities whatsoever.

Comment by NW sider Monday, Apr 3, 17 @ 4:28 pm
How is a state Rep going to block a grant that is administered by the governor’s office?

I can just hear the telephone conversation “Hey, Bruce, it’s Luis Arroyo calling, I want you to brick a grant for the Puerto Rican Cultural Center.”

“Who are you and how did you get this telephone number. It’s on the National Do Not Call list.”

Comment by Huh? Monday, Apr 3, 17 @ 4:32 pm
Puerto Rico will vote in June on statehood or independence. However, the United States Congress would have to act. Why would this Congress want Puerto Rico as a State?

Comment by Last Bull Moose Monday, Apr 3, 17 @ 4:43 pm
Puerto Ricans are “foreign, in a domestic sense” so that’s one, of many, reasons for the different national anthems -”While in an international sense Porto Rico (sic) was not a foreign country, since it was subject to the sovereignty of and was owned by the United States, it was foreign to the United States in a domestic sense, because the island has not been incorporated into the United States, but was merely appurtenant thereto as a possession.”[27]
The case created the constitutionally unprecedented category of “unincorporated territories” Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 244 (1901)

Comment by GetOverIt Monday, Apr 3, 17 @ 5:15 pm
Thanks for the info. So does Guam or other territories fall into the same category?
And could Washinton DC field their own team for WBC?

Comment by Big R. Ph Monday, Apr 3, 17 @ 8:31 pm