Oct. 2, 2002 – The election reform initiative calling for numbered seats in the Legislature is alive and well in the St. Thomas-St. John district, although less so than on St. Croix, Hugh Dalton, spokesman for the sponsoring Citizens for Legislative Reform, told the St. Thomas Rotary II Club on Wednesday.
Dalton said the group has collected more than the 3,000 signatures needed on St. Croix, but 1,500 more are needed on St. Thomas and St. John.
During St. John Festival events leading up to the Fourth of July, more than 400 of the island's approximately 2,000 registered voters signed petitions supporting the initiative, the committee reported then. Dalton said the totals now stand at about 500 for St. John and 1,000 for St. Thomas.
Leaders of the sponsoring group have conceded that they will not meet their goal of getting the initiative on the Nov. 5 ballot. However, Dalton said he anticipates a runoff election, which would take place two weeks later, and his hope is to get the initiative on that ballot.
Dalton told his Rotary luncheon audience, "Candidates all will give you campaign promises, and we all know that these promises will be broken, but we don't know which promises they broke." He said the numbered seat initiative will make candidates accountable at election time for what they have done, or not done, for the previous two years.
"The incumbents will be defending their own record, their own seat, so we will know what they have been doing," he said. The plan would assign a number to each Senate seat. Within the appropriate district, each challenger would run against a chosen incumbent. Those seeking re-election would run on how well they have done, challengers would campaign on how much better they could do.
Dalton said numbered seats might not be the best kind of election reform, but it's better than the current "fish-fry competition." Rotarian Leslie Milliner got a big hand when he commented, "Anything is better than what we now have."
In answer to the question of districting, a solution used widely on the mainland and favored by many in the territory, Dalton said it would be difficult to implement. It's probably the best solution, he said, but it requires congressional approval — a long, complicated process.
He explained that an initiative is binding, whereas a referendum is not, and that the group's initiative would signal the first time Virgin Islands voters will have created their own law.
The initiative officially came into existence after 1 percent of the registered voters in both districts signed a petition earlier this year asking for numbered seats. If the sponsors collect verifiable signatures of 10 percent of the registered voters in each district — this is the current effort — the proposal will go to the Legislature for a vote. If the senators approve it, the measure becomes law. If they reject it — which is all but certain — it will go to the voters for a decision.
Unlike the referendum to reduce the number of seats in the Senate that was approved overwhelmingly by voters on the 2000 ballot but later was rejected by the Senate, an initiative cannot be ignored by the lawmakers.
Dalton said the St. Thomas-St. John Chamber of Commerce has endorsed the initiative, as has its St. Croix counterpart, which sponsored the St. Croix initiative. He asked Rotary members to try to get 20 signatures each on the green petitions he handed out.
Where to sign or pick up petitions
Petitions in support of the initiative are available on St. Thomas at the following locations:
– The St. Thomas-St. John Chamber of Commerce offices
– MSI Building Supplies
– Beans & Bytes café in downtown Charlotte Amalie
– Dockside Bookshop
– Red Hook Mail Services
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