Jan. 30, 2002 – After starting an hour and a half late, the Senate in its second full session of the new year worked through about half of its hefty, two-day agenda, with several veto overrides thrown in for good measure.
Sen. Celestino White engineered an override of the governor's veto of his legislation to ban election campaigning after 2 a.m. on the day of an election. Gov. Charles W. Turnbull had said it was too broad in its scope. White's original bill had been to ban campaigning within 1,000 feet of a polling place on an election day, something Turnbull said he would have gone along with.
White also got two other overrides. He overturned Turnbull's veto of a measure requiring political parties to pay for their own primary election expenses, and successfully reinstated his amendment raising the cap on personal loans to government retirees from the Government Employees Retirement System from $8,000 to $50,000.
Sen. Adelbert Bryan moved for an override of the veto of a bill extending the exclusive ferry franchises of Varlack Ventures and Transportation Services of St. John to 50 years from the current 30 and requiring that everyone in a vehicle being transported on a barge buy a ferry ticket. The motion died for lack of a second. Not even the bill's sponsors – Sens. Donald "Ducks" Cole, Roosevelt David and Almando "Rocky" Liburd – raised a hand.
The bill, mainly because of the barge tickets provision, had generated vocal opposition within the St. John community.
Sen. Alicia "Chucky" Hansen was successful in getting an override of the governor's veto of a portion of her bill transferring responsibility for the territory's street lighting to the Water and Power Authority from the Public Works Department. The section that Turnbull had line-item vetoed appropriated more than $2.78 million that WAPA had requested for start up costs.
The scent of an election year hung in the air as political barbs punctuated the session, although most were delivered in a more or less jovial manner. After Sen. Vargrave Richards declined to support a couple of overrides, White remarked that it was obvious who wasn't voting against the governor, a comment that brought laughter from all sides of the chamber.
Richards has been widely rumored to be Turnbull's choice as running mate for the November election, a rumor the St. Croix senator and immediate past Senate president has neither denied nor confirmed. When asked later by a reporter, he responded only with a beaming smile.
In other business, the lawsmakers approved a zoning permit for the multimillion-dollar Robin Bay Associates development on St. Croix. (For details, see St. Croix Source story "Senate approves rezoning for casino".)
The item that generated the most discussion was a bill proposed by Sens. Lorraine Berry and Douglas Canton to petition Congress and the White House to make future international aide to Afghanistan and other countries contingent upon the recipient countries' elimination of discrimination against women. The senators took widely differing stands on the subject.
"I'm not supporting anything treading on people's religious beliefs, and I don't want anyone treading on mine," Sen. Norma Pickard-Samuel said. "If we're going to pass resolutions, I want a resolution for Virgin Islands women to be able to get their child support, to feed their kids. There are kids going without because of a $15 million computer system that doesn't work. We should fix that."
Sen. Alicia "Chucky" Hansen agreed to an extent. "That's their culture," she said, referring to gender discrimination, "and it won't change because we made a resolution."
Sen. Emmett Hansen II said nobody in the 24th Legislature has any experience in international relations and wondered, "What do we think we're doing?"
The bill passed on a 11-4 vote with Sen. Donald "Ducks" Cole not voting. Sens. Hansen, Hansen II, Pickard-Samuel and Adelbert Bryan cast the negative votes.
The Senate also approved bills honoring Edward Emanuel Griffin and Helen Angelica Sutton-Griffin for their decades of service and devotion to V.I. children and a lease to the Frenchtown Civic Organization for a building to be used as a museum.
Sutton-Griffin taught on St. Croix for 26 years, where she was instrumental in setting the educational and musical foundation of thousands of students. Griffin was a teacher and principal on St. Croix as well as a public health specialist; he helped get assistance to Jamaica, St. Lucia and Guyana as well as the V.I. in the aftermath of Hurricanes Hugo and Marilyn.
All senators were present for the session, which resumes at 10 a.m. Thursday.
