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Charlotte Amalie
Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Simplifying the Distribution of Senators

Dear Source:

In response to Paul Devine's comments on the V.I. Constitution, I think that the people of the Virgin Islands should endorse sub-district elections. None of the senators draft legislation for a particular election district. All of them vote on bills that affect the entire district. Therefore, I do not agree that any of the senators should be elected at large. Why should the election process and the make-up of the legislature be so complicated as proposed by Mr. Devine?
Why not elect 8 senators from the St. Thomas-St. John district and 8 from the St. Croix district? Each of these district could be broken into 4 sub-districts. The electorate for each sub-district could vote for only two candidates. This way the voters will be more in touch with their candidates and have easier access to them when they take office.
Regardless of how the legislature is rearranged, it is obvious that the present structure is ineffective and unfair. A change is needed; however, it does not require the effort of the 5th Constitutional Convention to implement this change. We the people, should pressure the candidates to make changing the process a priority. This convention is worse than the four previous. Some of the delegates are actually senatorial candidates. Imagine if these people are elected to serve as senators. They are incompetent as constitutional delegates, so most likely they'll be incompetent senators.

Victor Peters
Christiansted, St. Croix

Editor's note: We welcome and encourage readers to keep the dialogue going by responding to Source commentary. Letters should be e-mailed with name and place of residence to visource@gmail.com.

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