Four Democratic candidates vying to be the territory’s next delegate to Congress took to the stage of the St. Croix Educational Complex Thursday night for a spirited and sometimes heated debate hosted by the Democratic Party of the Virgin Islands.
Over nearly two hours, candidates Emmett Hansen, Teri Helenese, Janelle Sarauw and Delia Smith offered competing visions for the role of the territory’s representative in Washington. Several candidates also used their allotted time to fire broadsides at their opponents. The evening’s more pointed comments came during exchanges between Helenese, Smith and Sarauw, whose enthusiastic supporters formed the core of Thursday night’s in-person audience at the Complex auditorium. A section in which candidates were given an opportunity to ask a single opponent one question began with Sarauw challenging Helenese over the rum cover-over rate.
Excise tax collected on Virgin Islands-made rum exported to the United States is “covered over” to the territory. The cover-over rate was capped at $10.50 per proof gallon but extended to a rate of $13.25 and retroactively applied multiple times over the years. That rate expired in 2021, but the territory secured a permanent extension last summer after years of lobbying federal lawmakers — though the extension was not applied retroactively this time. Helenese and her supporters regularly cite the permanent extension as one of the crowning achievements of her tenure as the territory’s State-Federal Relations director.
“With all the relationships and with a salary of $216,000 from the [Public Finance Authority], why did you not work to negotiate a better rum cover-over deal?” Sarauw asked. “There’s no clause that allows for renegotiations, and you locked us into a permanent rate. That’s similar to locking somebody into a salary for the rest of their lives with no chance of a salary increase.”
Helenese said the rate of $13.25 was set by the federal government.
“It is not anything that Bacardi or Sazerac or Cruzan Rum or Captain Morgan could negotiate,” she said. “Of course… we all want $20, $22, but it is standardized from Washington D.C. So from that point of negotiation, that is where the adjustment lays.”
Sarauw said she didn’t buy Helenese’s explanation.
“That’s why we are in Congress,” she said, “and Congress historically has shown that they are willing to have federal carve-outs. We’ve had Medicaid carve-outs, we have the Jones Act carve-out, so I simply can’t agree with the fact that Congress agreed on a $13.25 — no modern tax structure is a static rate. Any modern tax structure is a percentage.”
Helenese and Smith both directed their questions back at Sarauw, and Smith accused the former senator of “misleading” Virgin Islanders by suggesting that she would be able to work with a Republican majority fixated on cutting taxes and dismantling social safety nets.
“And what is ‘misleading’ is to suggest that Ms. Sarauw will lead the Virgin Islands with her extensive knowledge of Virgin Islands law,” Smith said. Her comment elicited jeers from Sarauw’s supporters in the audience, prompting moderator Merlisa George to remind them that “we are a civil people.” Smith’s sharpest jab came during closing statements, during which she said that Sarauw’s character “has been brought to the spotlight by nobody but herself.”
“And that is my issue: to make sure that the person who represents you is one who is going to be of good character, a good citizen — one that is mature, one that is responsible, and one that will live within the laws of the United States and the United States Virgin Islands,” she said while George tried in vain to quell agitated audience members and keep Smith from speaking past her allotted time.
Though the case was not mentioned specifically, the comment came one month after a Florida judge declined to grant a restraining order against Sarauw sought by a former romantic partner. According to local media reports, the judge found that there hadn’t been any recent act of violence or basis to believe that violence was imminent.
After chastising the crowd Thursday, George told Smith that her comment was “unnecessary in your closing comments.”
“Let’s keep it respectable… you are to answer the question and support your candidacy,” George said.
Hansen, who in his opening statement said that a difference of opinion “was not a death sentence,” declined to ask any of his fellow candidates a question.
“I actually came here tonight to let the audience and the viewers listen to my plans. And this thing? No thank you,” he said, apparently put off by the tense back-and-forth.
The Democratic Party of the Virgin Islands will continue its forum and debate series on Friday evening with a gubernatorial debate at 6 p.m. held at the St. Croix Educational Complex.
