Congressional Delegate Donna Christensen urged a U.S. Senate Committee on Wednesday to send the proposed constitution back to the V.I. Constitutional Convention to consider input from the White House and Justice Department, and then to let the people vote on whatever document emerged from the re-engaged convention.
This seemed to be what other major players were thinking. What will happen, however, is not certain. There is a deadline for Congressional action by June 11, and with a busy legislative calendar it may not be met.
There are, in the eyes of the White House and the Justice Department, major problems with the draft constitution, such as making it mandatory that the governor and the lieutenant governor belong to families of long-settled Virgin Islanders, and to obliterate any property tax obligations of people belonging to such families. These distinctions are, to mainland leaders, contrary to the U.S. Constitution; and were such a document to be approved by the islands’ voters, would surely lead to court actions filed by the federal authorities.
One option, apparently getting little support on Capitol Hill, is that Congress would specify how the draft constitution should be changed. The other option, seemingly more likely to happen, is that the convention will be asked to think about these issues, and then adopt the current document, or revise it, subject to a vote by V.I. residents.
Whether the draft document, so voted upon, would have to come back to the Congress, again, was not clear Wednesday.
Convention President Gerard “Luz” James, one of the witnesses before Congress, asked that the federal government provide $600,000 in funds to the constitutional convention should it be asked to reconvene. That seemed likely to happen.
The special rights for old families in the territory are a thorny issue; are such old families an indigenous population, as are the Samoans and the residents of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, as some convention delegates argue?
The Samoans, I learned while working for the Interior Department, have managed to preserve some rights that are unusual under the U.S. flag. Most, but not all, real estate in those islands is not subject to sale—at all; the land belongs to tribal organizations managed by the tribal elders. As far as the territory is concerned, the "Samoan analogy" has not persuaded officials at the White House and the Justice Department.
Justice Department attorney Jonathan Cedarbaum made the administration’s point at the hearing that the proposed special powers of native V.I. families would not meet federal standards.
For her part, Christensen urged the process to keep going forward. “I consider the adoption of our own Constitution an important … step in our political development. This is our fifth attempt; it could be yet another generation before a sixth convention is convened. That is unacceptable,” she said.
