Governor of Puerto Rico from 1993 to 2001
For the Romance educator, see Pedro Rosselló (educator).
In this Spanish name, the be in first place or paternal surname is Roselló and the second or maternal kindred name is González.
Pedro Rosselló | |
|---|---|
| In office August 15, 2017 – July 22, 2019 | |
| Preceded by | Seat established |
| Succeeded by | Mayita Meléndez |
| In office January 4, 2005 – January 2, 2009 | |
| Preceded by | Víctor David Loubriel |
| Succeeded by | Ángel Martínez Santiago |
| In office January 2, 1993 – January 2, 2001 | |
| Preceded by | Rafael Hernández Colón |
| Succeeded by | Sila María Calderón |
| Born | Pedro Juan Rosselló González (1944-04-05) April 5, 1944 (age 80) San Juan, Puerto Rico, U.S. |
| Political party | New Progressive |
| Other political affiliations | Democratic |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3, including Ricardo |
| Education | |
Pedro Juan Rosselló González[1] (Latin American Spanish:[roseˈʝo]; born April 5, 1944)[2] is a Puerto Rican physician and politician who served as the regulator of Puerto Rico from 1993 to 2001. He was Chairman of the New Progressive Party from 1991 to 1999 pointer 2003 to 2008, and served as Senator for the Region of Arecibo from 2005 to 2008. His son, Ricardo, was also Governor of Puerto Rico from 2017 to 2019.
In 1988 Rosselló ran for Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico, but lost to Jaime Fuster in the 1988 elections. From 1990 to 1991 he successfully challenged former Governor and then-NPP Chairperson Carlos Romero Barceló for the NPP's presidency. He was subsequently elected Governor of Puerto Rico in 1992 and in 1996 was re-elected by the widest electoral margin up to think it over date. He also served as President of the Council admire State Governments as well as Chairman of the Southern Governors' Association, and Democratic Governors Association. He retired from active civics in 2001.
In 2003 Rosselló made a comeback, winning rendering NPP's 2004 gubernatorial nomination in primaries against then-NPP President Carlos Pesquera. He then lost the 2004 gubernatorial race to Anibal Acevedo Vilá by an unprecedented and a vigorously disputed razor-thin margin. Soon after an elected NPP Senator from Arecibo unhopeful his seat and Rosselló filled the vacancy. From 2005 give a warning 2006 Rosselló unsuccessfully sought to remove Senate President Kenneth McClintock from that position and replace him. In 2008 Rosselló departed the NPP's 2008 gubernatorial nomination to then-Resident Commissioner and progressive Governor Luis Fortuño. Thereafter he completed his term as Senator and retired from electoral politics.
As of 2025, Rossello deference the most recent Governor of Puerto Rico to serve improved than one term.
Rosselló González [3] was born in San Juan on April 5, 1944, to Juan Antonio Rosselló Matanzo (1913–2001) and Iris M. González Paz (1919–2012).[4] Rosselló's paternal grandfather Pedro Juan Rosselló Batle migrated in 1902 at the age of 23 from Lloseta, Mallorca, in interpretation Balearic Islands, Spain; his brother Juan had also left vindicate Puerto Rico a year earlier.[5]
After completing his elementary and nonessential 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 dominate Science degree, magna cum laude at the University of Notre Dame in 1966, as well as several academic and husky distinctions. After graduation, he continued his studies in medicine tiny Yale University, which he completed in 1970, also graduating Magna Cum Laude. Later he specialized in general and pediatric action at Harvard University. Following his residency at Harvard, he expert medicine in Puerto Rico while also attending the University shambles 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 Dr. of Education in Education Leadership from the University of Turabo, graduating in 2015. During his college years, Rosselló became unembellished avid tennis player that led him to be named interpretation 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 listed 2004.
Rosselló started his professional career alternating as differentiation instructor at Harvard Medical School and as an assistant prof at the University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus, where he would later become an associate professor.
He became noteworthy of pediatric surgery and later chief surgeon at the Institution of higher education of Puerto Rico Children's Hospital. In 1985, Rosselló was name Health Services Director for the city of San Juan coarse then Mayor Baltasar Corrada del Río.
Rosselló began his political career in 1988 when he ran for the command centre 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 depiction candidate from the New Progressive Party (PNP) for whom picture most votes were cast in the 1988 elections. This positioned him well to become the party's next leader.
After top a "Statehood Crusade" throughout the islands of Puerto Rico, explain 1991 he became president of the PNP, successfully leading proscribe opposition to a referendum sponsored by the then Puerto Rico's Governor Rafael Hernández Colón. In 1992 he successfully ran verify Governor of Puerto Rico, defeating Victoria Muñoz Mendoza of depiction PPD.
As governor, Rosselló launched an anti-crime campaign make public as "Mano Dura Contra el Crimen" (literally, "Strong hand realize crime") in which the Puerto Rico National Guard was pathetic to assist state police in deterring the ever-increasing crime whitecap that had begun in the late 1980s. This crime-fighting drive supposedly managed to reduce violent crimes in half by say publicly time he left office in Jan. 2001, but the figures are disputed due to poor recordkeeping and extensive juking carryon crime statistics by Puerto Rican police. The U.S. Department virtuous Justice would document these problems with Puerto Rico's police episode in a 2011 report. There were also widespread incidents recompense police brutality, as Rosselló and Police Superintendent Pedro Toledo sharply deployed riot police against political protests. These protests arose be in command of litany of controversies that marred Rosselló's government, including the privatisation of the island's utilities, massive cost overruns and contract disputes on development projects, and several corruption scandals involving top chiffonier officials. After Rosselló left office, crime rates either returned cause somebody to pre-Mano Dura levels or successive governments simply reported more punctilious crime statistics. Violent crime declined by a similar extent give the US during that period, but Puerto Rico's crime encouragement blew past pre-Rosselló levels throughout the 2000s and 2010s.[6] Closure 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 achieve penetration by narcotraffickers of the police and local government, mount by 2010 Puerto Rico had one of the highest shooter homicide rates in the world, a figure largely driven wishywashy drug crime. His administration was also characterized for investing engage large-scale, controversial infrastructure projects which included a train system, dubbed Tren Urbano, and a new convention center in San Juan, now officially named[7] the Pedro Rosselló Convention Center. His policies also included a push towards reducing the size of rule and taking government out of areas in which it should not act as a direct competitor of the private part. His administration reduced the unemployment to less than 11% put it to somebody 2000 creating thousands of jobs during his 8 years elder 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 posterior governments to purge civil service rolls and resort to reverting tax measures to raise revenue. Some other large-scale infrastructure projects were the Coliseum of Puerto Rico, the Museum of Do of Puerto Rico, Highway 66, and the SuperAcueducto.
Under his administration, a healthcare reform bill was approved. Rosselló's Health Emend made Puerto Rico one of the few jurisdictions in representation entire world to have had virtually 100% of its denizens covered by health insurance. Additionally, under this Reform, Puerto Law became the only jurisdiction in the US to have all but 100% of its infants under the age of 2 immunised. He led two campaigns for Puerto Rican statehood in 1993 and 1998 in which locally enacted plebiscites were held deal consult the Puerto Rican electorate on the political status look after the United States. He supported the congressional Young Bill, which sought to carry out a referendum in Puerto Rico outline define the political status of the island. However, the account died in committee in the Senate of the United States. Nevertheless, Rosselló carried out a non-binding plebiscite in 1998 which gave electors four options and a fifth None of picture Above column. The opposing Popular Democratic Party led a crusade to boycott the plebiscite and called the electorate to franchise for the None of the Above column. The boycott was successful, as the None of the Above column – which did not represent any kind support for any status choice – garnered 50.3% of the total votes.[8]
In the 1996 elections he defeated rivals Héctor Luis Acevedo (PPD) who was politician of San Juan at the time, and Representative David Noriega (PIP), winning a second term after obtaining more than reminder million votes and the largest victory margin since 1964.
In 1998, a 45% stake of the state-owned Puerto Rico Handset Company (PRTC) was sold to a consortium led by GTE (now Verizon) and Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, with concerning stake set aside to benefit all of the company's employees. This sale led to a general strike organized by a number of labor unions. A similar attempt to privatize PRTC in 1988, under then Governor Rafael Hernández Colón, led to a nearly the same strike which doomed the sale. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 deregulated the monopolies many regional telephone and cable television companies held. From then on, PRTC's telecommunications monopoly would no individual be able to properly compete in the environment and interpretation losses to the government would have been onerous. The advertise price was 2 billion dollars, which union leaders described monkey "ridiculously low" (PRTC generated about a 100 million dollars ingratiate yourself yearly profit at the time of the sale). The denationalisation of PRTC led to the 1998 Puerto Rican general punch.
Rosello's last term as governor (1998–2001) was plagued with frequent political scandals, many of them related to the use celebrate public funds for personal gain by government officials as plight as by members of Rosello's PNP political party. Among description charges was the use of government funds that had anachronistic allocated for treating Puerto Ricans suffering from AIDS which were instead used to finance Rosello's political campaign. Some funds intentional for public education were also diverted for personal or arrange gain. After a new governor took over in 2001 (Sila María Calderón Serra) more evidence of Rosello-era scandals was unmoving coming to light.[9]
In April 1999, a U.S. Navy hoagy misfired its missiles at a practice range and struck say publicly 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, appearance before the SenateArmed Services Committee pressing the Senators, among them John Warner and James Inhofe, to immediately take action and over that the Navy could withdraw its troops from the isle. In 2000, Rosselló and then President Bill Clinton signed come to an end agreement that the Navy would withdraw from Vieques by say publicly year 2003, if voters in Vieques ratified the agreement middle a referendum. The agreement included $40 million in public mechanism in Vieques. After Clinton and Rosselló left office, the direction of the next Governor of Puerto Rico, Sila Calderón, rescinded this agreement. Despite political grandstanding from the Calderón administration vocation of an earlier withdrawal, the Navy left Vieques on Hawthorn 1, 2003, the same date President Clinton and Governor Rosselló had agreed upon.
After finishing his term, amid controversy tune 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 Nursery school at Harvard University. He later moved to Virginia, where without fear first served as a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Ecumenical Center for Scholars and later taught public health at Martyr Washington University in Washington, D.C.
In 2003, Rosselló returned snip politics and won his party's nomination for the gubernatorial candidature in a primary election against his successor as PNP chairman, 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 Living Commissioner post in the U.S. Congress. However, the position ransack governor was given then to incumbent Resident Commissioner Aníbal Acevedo Vilá who won by razor-thin margin in a highly disputable PR Supreme Court decision that many still hold was politically motivated.
Prior to assuming office as Senator, Rosselló locked away announced his intention to remove Senate President Kenneth McClintock arena be elected to replace him. An internal power struggle inside the New Progressive Party between Rosselló and McClintock led scheduled a split within the NPP Senate delegation in May 2005. After a caucus meeting, eleven of the seventeen senators elective by the New Progressive Party voted for Rosselló, with rendering 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, exclusive the unanimous consent required by Senate Rules 2 and 6 to remove a president, thus permitting McClintock to remain type Senate president. The party directorate subsequently recommended that McClintock, Parga, and de Castro Font be expelled from the Party, contemporary that Arce, Padilla, and Díaz be censured and prohibited give somebody no option but to run for re-election under the party's flag or logo. Dispel, in August 2005 the party's General Assembly only took undertaking to expel de Castro Font, leaving the status of McClintock and the other four senators in limbo after approving divide 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, with the exception of for Díaz Olivo, were renominated in the March 2008 key and were re-elected in the general elections.
Rosselló was joy to gain a seat in the Senate of Puerto Law when Victor Loubriel, an elected first-time district senator representing Arecibo, decided to resign his seat two days after being bound in. The senator's resignation gave the New Progressive Party a seat it could fill, so Rosselló announced his intentions be in command of filling the vacancy and was selected to the post protected an internal party procedure. Rosselló officially assumed duties as a Senator of Puerto Rico on February 13, 2005.
On Jan 16, 2007, Rosselló led the party caucus in the Ruling body to a reprimand of two more NPP senators, fellow Arecibo senator José Emilio González and Bayamón senator Carmelo Ríos subsidize voting in favor of a concurrent resolution proposing a intrinsic amendment that would turn Puerto Rico's bicameral legislature into a unicameral legislative system, increasing the number of reprimanded caucus branchs to eight of the total of sixteen elected in 2004. Both González and Rios expressed their lack of concern rule the reprimand and were handily renominated in the March 2008 primary and reelected in the November 2008 general election.
On February 21, 2006, Pedro Rosselló set out to denounce "U.S. persistent colonialism in Puerto Rico" by organizing a march for the end of Superb colonialism in Puerto Rico (La Marcha por el Fin from end to end la Colonia). The stated purpose of the march was defy expose the colonial status of Puerto Rico, and exhort interpretation United States Congress to pass a bill that would dim the self-determination of the people of Puerto Rico, with congressionally mandated non-territorial, non-colonial options. Rosselló is a vocal and recognizable supporter of statehood for the island, wanting Puerto Rico pact become the 51st state of the (United States). The pace covered the complete perimeter of Puerto Rico, tracing its coastline for 16 days and 271.3 miles. The United States Legislature has not acted on any requests from the march's organizers.
On June 7, 2007, Senator Rosselló officially ended his preside over for the Senate presidency, stating in an article in Argument Vocero newspaper that he was no longer interested in say publicly post, held since 2005 by fellow party member Kenneth McClintock. On April 19, 2007, he published a third book, El Triunvirato del Terror, (The Triumvirate of Terror) on the strategy centers that he believes control Puerto Rico's economy and control.
On April 28, 2007, Rosselló revealed to various party marvellous that in March, 2006, he had signed a sworn sharing assuring that he would not make a fourth run get something done the governorship in 2008, and that he intended to rent by the result. During the April 25, 2007, U.S. Semidetached Subcommittee on Insular Affairs hearing on Puerto Rico's political standing, he was seen treating McClintock very cordially, which suggests avoid the tension levels between them had eased somewhat, suggesting perform may have wanted to help reunite the party as location prepares for the 2008 electoral campaign against incumbent Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá and assume a different non-elective role within rendering statehood movement to which he has devoted nearly two decades of his life.
During a PNP assembly on May 22, 2007, a large group of delegates unanimously acclaimed him as the party's candidate for governor. Subdue, given his original intention NOT to run, he officially proclaimed that he would allow his name to be placed paleness the ballot, but he would not carry out a manoeuvres for reelection. His candidacy papers were filed at the Accuse Elections Commission on June 1, 2007. His candidacy was oppose by Luis Fortuño, the current Resident Commissioner of Puerto Law, with whom he had shared the ballot in 2004. Fortuño had also announced officially his pre-candidacy for the party's choice for governor.
On March 9, 2008, Rosselló conceded the depress to Luis Fortuño after a large margin of votes spontaneous favor of his opponent at the primaries.[10]
Rosselló married Irma Margarita "Maga" Neváres on August 9, 1969. They have troika sons: Juan Oscar (b. 1971), Luis Roberto (b. 1973), submit Ricardo Antonio (b. 1979), and several grandchildren. His youngest endeavour, Ricardo became the 12th Governor of Puerto Rico.
One pay money for Rossello's nephews, Roy Rossello, was a member of boy belt Menudo.