Anibal Acevedo Vila

Aníbal Salvador Acevedo Vilá (b. San Juan, Puerto Rico, February 13, 1962), is a Puerto Rican politician and lawyer. Acevedo Vilá was the eighth Governor elected of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico under the banner of the PPD Party between 2005 and 2009 and the ninth Puerto Rican. Acevedo Vilá obtained the position of Governor in the general elections of November 9, 2004, by a margin of 3566 votes; being the 2nd closest general election in the political history of Puerto Rico in 24 years since the last time in 1980. Although the opposition party questions the validity of hundreds of votes, the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico validated them. This decision was upheld by the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit of Boston. Acevedo Vilá is the first governor born after the adoption of the Constitution of Puerto Rico.

In addition to being governor, Acevedo Vilá has held important political posts in Puerto Rico. Among them is having been a member of the House of Representatives of Puerto Rico (1993-2001) and Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico in Washington, DC (2001-2005). He is a member of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD), the US National Governors Association, the Southern Governors Association, and the Democratic Governors Association. In 2009, Acevedo Vilá endorsed United States presidential candidate Barack Obama as superdelegate.

On March 27, 2008, Acevedo Vilá was indicted by the US Department of Justice for 19 counts related to alleged administrative irregularities in the financing of electoral campaigns. As a result, Acevedo Vilá held a press conference where he pleaded his innocence of all the charges brought against him. On August 19, 2008, he was indicted on five additional counts. On December 1, 2008, Judge Paul Barbadoro dismissed 15 of those charges, leaving Acevedo Vilá with only nine charges. On March 20, 2009, Acevedo Vilá was found not guilty by a jury of all charges against him.

Beginnings

Acevedo Vilá was born in San Juan (Puerto Rico) on February 13, 1962. He studied at the Colegio San José de Río Piedras in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he graduated in 1979. In 1982 he obtained a Baccalaureate magna cum laude in Political Science from the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus. In 1985, he obtained a juris doctor magna cum laude from the University of Puerto Rico School of Law, having stood out as chief editor of the Legal Magazine of the Law School, as was the previous president of the United States Barack Hussein Obama II at Harvard University with the Harvard Law Review magazine. In 1987 he obtained a Master of Laws degree magna cum laude from Harvard University. Once he finished his studies, his professional career began. He worked (1986 and 1988) as legal officer of the then Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, Federico Hernández Denton on the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico and of the Hon. Levin Campbell, Chief Justice of the First Circuit of Appeals in Boston.

Political career

House of Representatives

Aníbal Salvador Acevedo Vilá began his political career in 1989 when he worked as Legislative Affairs Advisor for then-Governor Rafael Hernández Colón. In 1992, he was elected Representative by Accumulation for the Popular Democratic Party. He developed his leadership skills during this period and was revalidated as the representative in the 1996 elections with the most votes in the PDP and elected Minority Speaker by his fellow House delegations. The following year, at the age of 35, he was elected president of the Popular Democratic Party in a vote of the General Council of the PPD. He assumed the Presidency of the party at one of its most critical moments.

In 1998, Acevedo Vilá participated in a campaign against the Young Project, a legislative project of the United States Congress that tried to solve the problem of the political status of Puerto Rico by calling a referendum endorsed by the then Governor of Puerto Rico, Pedro Rossello Gonzalez. The referendum would not include the current Commonwealth option which the Popular Democratic Party favored and which on previous occasions had been the winning option. For this reason they decided to opt for the option of the fifth column known as "None of the Previous", a formula that obtained a historic victory with almost 54% of the votes, for which he consolidated himself as the leader of his party and voice of a New Generation.

Resident Commissioner

In the year 2000, Acevedo Vilá ran for the position of Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico's representative to the United States Congress), after defeating José Hernández Mayoral (son of former Governor Rafael Hernández Colón) in his party's primary in 1999. In the 2000 general elections, Acevedo Vilá was victorious over Resident Commissioner Carlos Romero Barceló then in office, with 49% of the vote. He obtained more votes than his running mate, Governor Sila María Calderón. He later became Governor of Puerto Rico.

Governor

In the summer of 2003, the then Governor of Puerto Rico Sila María Calderón decided not to run for a second term. José Alfredo Hernández Mayoral is the person chosen to replace her but he decides not to run, allegedly for the health of his son. It is then that the then Resident Commissioner fills the vacancy in the Governor's candidacy.

In the General Elections of 2004, he was elected eighth Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the second youngest Governor in the history of the Country with 42 years at the time he began his term. It is a close and unique election in the political history of Puerto Rico where one party (New Progressive Party) obtains the majority in the House and Senate, the election of the Resident Commissioner and the majority of the mayoralties on the Island while another party acquires the governorship. The defeat of the PNP candidate, Pedro Rosselló, and the victory of Aníbal Acevedo Vilá by 3,566 votes (0.2%), is the closest in the history of Puerto Rico. However, Puerto Rico Electoral Law requires that there be an election recount if the winner's margin of victory is less than 4,000 votes. During the recount period, Rosselló sues Acevedo Vilá alleging that the mixed votes called "pivazos" they are illegal. According to Rosselló, the intention was to adjudicate as valid a number of ballots that were invalid because the voter voted incorrectly. Said ballots would alter the final result of the vote in favor of Rosselló.

Example of ballot for election to governor in the 2004 elections illustrates the Joint Vote allowed by EEC Rule 50.

The following is the text of the Instructions on How to Vote on the State Electoral Ballot (2004 General Elections), as can be seen from the ballot used for Puerto Rican voters to vote to elect the Governor and Resident Commissioner:

"To vote mixed, place a valid mark (X) under the badge of the party of your choice and place a mark next to another candidate outside of your party column, or write the name of another person of your choice under the corresponding position, in the last column of Direct Nomination. Please note that you may only vote for one (1) candidate for Governor and one (1) candidate for Resident Commissioner."

The PNP challenges the adjudication of the ballots that had a mark under the insignia of the PIP and marks next to the candidacy of Aníbal Acevedo Vilá as candidate for Governor for the PPD. According to the express instructions in the State Ballot, you can only vote for one (1) candidate for governor and one (1) candidate for Resident Commissioner, but in every election in Puerto Rico you can make a cross next to any candidate that does not belong to the preferred party, turning the ballot into a mixed one. The controversy centered on the fact that a vote under the PIP banner represented one (1) vote for its gubernatorial candidate and one (1) vote for its Resident Commissioner candidate. The New Progressive candidate then alleges that the marks next to the candidates for those same positions for the Popular Democratic Party invalidated the Ballot. Since the Commissioners of the 3 parties had signed the official pamphlet of the State Election Commission and the mixed voting rules had already been accepted, the controversy ended. That type of ballot had already been accepted as legal in all previous elections in Puerto Rico.

The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico rules that the votes in question are valid because the 3 commissioners of the 3 parties: Juan Dalmau Ramírez (PIP), Gerardo "Toñito" Cruz (PPD) and Thomas Rivera Schatz (PNP) signed the Procedures Manual of the state Elections Commission where pages 52-53 ensure how to vote in section 59.2 where it guides how to award mixed votes on the state ballot (R. 81). Acevedo Vilá is certified winner on December 28, 2004. The case is appealed at the federal level and the district court upholds the decision of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico.

Acevedo Vilá assumes the governorship of Puerto Rico on January 2, 2005 in a ceremony different from the previous ones. The tradition is that the Governor of Puerto Rico is sworn in on the north side of the Puerto Rico Capitol. This time, Acevedo Vilá changes the place and chooses the Luis Muñoz Rivera Park, which is located at the entrance to the islet of San Juan. As Governor, Acevedo Vilá would face many political challenges, since the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico was controlled by the opposition party (Partido Nuevo Progresista, PNP) and the Resident Commissioner, Luis Fortuño who later challenged him in the elections of December 4. November 2008, defeating him by 221,099 votes according to the State Election Commission.

Call for a n#34;Shared Government#34;

Because the two main branches of government are controlled by different parties, Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá has called his government a "Shared Government." He has concentrated his efforts on trying to get bipartisan support for his projects. He began this task by appointing people from different political parties to his cabinet.

However, Acevedo Vilá and the Puerto Rico Legislature have entered into several controversies. After the governor vetoed a bill promoted by the PNP's legislative majority, they decided not to confirm several of the Governor's nominees for the Executive's Constitutional Cabinet.

Acevedo claimed that his government inherited a difficult financial situation from the previous administration and that his government is working with a deficit of over 400 million dollars. Because of this, Governor Acevedo has proposed several measures to control the deficit. These proposed measures have caused the governor to receive negative approval from the people for the first nine months of his administration. A newspaper on the island published a survey that revealed that over 65 percent of the people interviewed rated the Governor's efforts a D or an F. Until today the efforts for a shared government have not been given.

Partial Government Shutdown

New tensions between the Executive and the Legislature arose in April 2006, when Acevedo announced that the Central Government of the Island did not have sufficient funds to pay the payroll of public employees for the months of May and June. The Governor asked the Legislature to approve a loan of over $500 million so that government agencies could be kept active. The Senate approved the loan but the House of Representatives refused to do so. Acevedo then announced that government agencies would close their doors as of May 1 and would not reopen until the loan was approved, causing around 90,000 public employees to remain on the streets and without receiving part of their salary from payroll.

The partial closure lasted two weeks until Governor Acevedo and legislative leaders managed to reach an agreement thanks to the intervention of the country's religious leaders. The details of the agreement included the approval of the loan as well as a new tax reform that imposes a sales tax and requires the reduction of the central government's operating costs.

Acevedo Vilá is the author of the book In Honor of the Truth, a compilation of papers and historical messages that recount his incessant struggle to develop the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico to its full potential. He is married to Mrs. Luisa "Piti" Gándara and has two children, Gabriela and Juan Carlos. It should be noted that the years of his government were marred by being those of the New Progressive Party (PNP) or the opposite party, the majority in the PR chamber and senate.

Defeat in the 2008 elections

During 2008, Acevedo Vilá was indicted on a total of 24 corruption charges. Due to this situation and the economic crisis during his term, several potential candidates such as William Miranda Marín (Former Mayor of Caguas) and Alejandro García Padilla (Former Secretary of the Department of Consumer Affairs) were mentioned as possible replacements. However, Acevedo Vilá decided to present his candidacy for re-election, and was openly endorsed by the Popular Democratic Party in a massive caucus held at the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum.

Some time later, he chose the Director of the Development and Development Bank of Puerto Rico, Alfredo Salazar, as his running mate for the position of Resident Commissioner. Although many people considered him the candidate to lose, many analysts rated his campaign as superior to that of his main opponent, Luis Fortuño. The closing campaign of the Popular Democratic Party was held in the parking lot of one of the Urban Train stations. Despite his party's support, Acevedo Vilá was defeated by Fortuño by a margin of 224,894 votes, becoming the popular candidate defeated by the largest margin in Puerto Rican history. A short time later, Acevedo Vilá announced his resignation as President of the party.

Defeat in 2020 elections

In 2019 Acevedo Vilá announced that he would run again for the position of resident commissioner. There were no primaries as the other candidates failed to get the required endorsements. Polls indicated that Acevedo Vila was ten points behind the PNP incumbent‚ Jenniffer González. The election results confirmed these projections where Acevedo Vilá received 32% of the vote and was defeated by a margin of 106,000 votes.

Federal Charges

The case was brought to the federal forum by the former governor of Puerto Rico Carlos Romero Barceló of the New Progressive Party (PNP), who had lost his election as Resident Commissioner in Washington against his political opponent Aníbal Acevedo Vilá and assured the media. He presented evidence to a judge that he had appointed in 1979 when he was governor, the judge and Chief of the Federal Prosecutor Rosa Emilia Rodríguez. She is together with the prosecutor María Domínguez and the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Luis Fraticelli, they were the ones who mentioned to the media the indictment that the prosecution had against Aníbal Acevedo Vilá. Former Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, was elected by the people of Puerto Rico and affiliated with the Popular Democratic Party (PPD) has been resident commissioner in Washington in 2000 and the governorship of Puerto Rico in 2004, he faced nine criminal charges for allegedly illegal financing of their election campaigns and violations of federal electoral law. The charges were multiple conspiracy, money laundering, interfering with interstate commerce by fraudulent email communications, and depriving the people of their honest services. If he was guilty, he would face a jail sentence of up to 20 years.

In this case, seven co-defendants had already pleaded guilty, three of whom reached cooperation agreements with federal prosecutors and would testify in the jury trial against the former president in exchange for less severe sentences. Acevedo Vilá was indicted on March 27, 2008 during the last year of his term. Originally 24 charges were filed against the former governor. On July 8, 2008, the Governor of Puerto Rico Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, through his attorneys Thomas Green, Brandford Berenson, José Ortiz and Harry Anduze, filed a Motion to Dismiss in which they requested the dismissal of counts 1, 10- 22 and 25-27 of the accusatory document. One of the main allegations of the defense was the Prescription. It was alleged that 40 of the 41 crimes charged had already prescribed, so there was no cause of action against the defendant for having committed the crimes charged. On December 1, 2008 Judge Paul J. Barbadoro dismissed 15 of the 24 counts.

Conclusion of the case

The case was heard from February 9, 2009 to March 20, 2009, after four years of investigation, 29 days of trial six prosecutors and six defense attorneys in the case. A jury of 12 Puerto Ricans made up of eight women and four men unanimously found him not guilty, since part of the evidence was found inconclusive and for the crimes for which there was compelling evidence, they had prescribed.