# Prohibition & women's suffrage in Puerto Rico

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prohibition-womens-suffrage-in-puerto-rico/357972>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 23, 2006, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prohibition-womens-suffrage-in-puerto-rico/357972 "2006-05-23T22:41:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prohibition-womens-suffrage-in-puerto-rico/357972/1 "2006-05-23T22:41:27Z")

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Was Prohibition in effect in Puerto(Porto) Rico? Also why did Puerto Rican women have to wait until 1928/36 to get the vote? Is it because Puerto Rico was a territory and not a state? If so what about Alaska and Hawai’i?

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**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prohibition-womens-suffrage-in-puerto-rico/357972/2 "2006-05-23T23:29:23Z")

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Under the statutes and jurisprudence in place, many provisions of the the US Constitution did not automatically extend _ex proprio vigore_ to the territories. Heck, some not even to states! And some still don’t. But prohibition was in place almost simultaneously to the states, yet women’s suffrage was put into efect quite a while later. 'tis always the same with our political classes – if they can, they take their good time getting around to doing some good, but they’re fast when it comes to socking it to us

No idea what they did with AK and HI.

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**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2006, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prohibition-womens-suffrage-in-puerto-rico/357972/3 "2006-05-24T02:33:42Z")

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The Nineteenth Amendment applied to Alaska and Hawaii, but not to Puerto Rico, because the former were “incorporated” federal territories and the latter was and is “unincorporated”. For the reasoning behind this distinction, and for general discussion of the constitutional status of Puerto Rico, see [this very informative thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=286521&highlight=Puerto+Rico).

Prohibition applied to Puerto Rico; even without the Eighteenth Amendment, Congress had the power to enact Prohibition in Puerto Rico under the “all needful rules and regulations” clause. Congress finally got around to repealing statutory Prohibition in the territories in 1934.