May 23, 2001 — Even though the Senate is set to hold public hearings on reducing its members from 15 to nine, the one legislator behind the proposal said his colleagues’ efforts are anything but genuine.
The Senate Committee on Government Operations and Environmental Protection, chaired by Sen. Donald "Ducks" Cole, will hold hearings on the reduction bill June 4, 6 and 7 on St. John, St. Thomas and St. Croix respectively. Sen. Adlah "Foncie" Donastorg, the man behind the measure, had asked Cole to reschedule the hearings because he will be off-island. Cole refused.
"I was in no way surprised" by the refusal, Donastorg wrote Wednesday to Cole. "I firmly believe assigning my bill to your committee was a calculated attempt to kill this measure and my absence simply benefits your cause."
Donastorg’s bill was sent back to committee last month on an 8-5 vote, with two senators absent. At the time, Donastorg said the move was an effort to bury the bill. Several majority senators, including Sens. Celestino White, Adelbert Bryan and Cole, have publicly stated their opposition to the reduction idea, even though 87 percent of the people who went to the polls in last year’s election voted to cut the size of the Legislature.
On Wednesday, Cole reiterated his stance, saying that the population of the Virgin Islands is actually under-represented and needs more legislators.
"I personally don’t believe it is in the best interest of the people of the Virgin Islands to reduce representation at this point in time," Cole said, referring to the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that ensures the principle of "one man, one vote."
Cole pointed to Guam, which like the Virgin Islands is a U.S. territory. Cole said that according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Guam has 21 members in its legislature representing 153,000 people. That works out to approximately 7,285 persons per representative, or 4.76 percent representation.
The V.I., he said, has 15 senators for a population of 101,809, or 6,787 persons per representative, 6.67 percent representation. By reducing the V.I. Senate to nine, that will increase the number of persons per representative to 11,312, or 11.11 percent representation.
"If we reduce the size of the Legislature we will be the least represented municipality in the United States," Cole said. "We should be increasing the size of the Legislature instead of decreasing."
Donastorg and Cole traded verbal barbs Wednesday after Cole refused to reschedule the hearings. Donastorg called the scheduled meetings a "farce," with the intent of clouding the issue.
"The referendum was an accurate and wholly democratic tool for public input and participation," he wrote Cole. "What more needs to be said?"
Donastorg maintains that his Senate reduction bill could save as much as $12 million per two-year term, a savings fully supported by voters. But the effort by Cole and other senators ignores the peoples’ mandate, he said.
"They are telling the majority of the people of the Virgin Islands that the decision they made was an unintelligent decision," Donastorg said.
Nonetheless, Cole was adamant in his opposition to the bill. "The referendum was placed on the ballot without informing the public of the issues," he said.
Cole said that at the end of the public hearings, the committee — made up of Sens. Cole, Donastorg, White, Bryan, Carlton Dowe, David Jones and Roosevelt David — will vote on the bill. The hearings start at 6 p.m. on each island.
