From WNYC Studios, it's Brian Lairer, a daily politics podcast. It's Monday, April 25th.

Let me read from a dissenting opinion written by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor last Thursday and see if you can

figure out where in the United States she is talking about. Some of you already know. The rest of you

see if you can figure it out. Quote, in my view, there is no rational basis for Congress to treat

needy citizens living anywhere in the United States so

differently from others. To hold otherwise, as the court does, is irrational and antithetical to the

very nature of the SSI Social Security program and the equal protection of citizens guaranteed by

the Constitution. I respectfully dissent,

unquote. So Justice Sotomayor was the lone dissenter in a case in which the court found that

residents of Puerto Rico can legally be excluded from supplemental security income benefits.

That's SSI. These are the types of disability benefits,

if you don't know, that can be claimed by adults and children from households below certain

income thresholds. Now, the ruling was 8 to 1, not just the usual left-right split.

And writing for the majority, Brett Kavanaugh noted that because Puerto Rico's tax

status exempts residents of the island from most federal income, estate, and gift taxes,

there's a rational basis for excluding residents of Puerto Rico from benefit programs such as

SSI. Though Congress, if it decides, can still extend these benefits to the island and other U.S.

territories and possessions.

Puerto Rico's governor says the only solution is statehood.

So we'll talk about that case and put it and other recent news into the context of Puerto Rico's colonial territorial

limbo. There may be action on that in Congress, even this week, at least in a non-binding way.

And we'll talk about all this with Yadimad Bonilla, professor of Puerto Rican studies and anthropology

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