Winding its way through the committee process is a bill requiring candidates be seated by the party identification under which they filed their candidacy for office.
The election-reform bill would also increase the penalty for any employer refusing to allow an employee time off to vote from the current $50 up to $5,000, giving employers a very strong incentive to let employees take time to go vote. And the bill would make a broad array of small changes in how the elections system operates. For instance, allowing the superintendent of elections simply to post a notice about the casting of lots for ballot position in the newspaper, rather than mailing a notice to each candidate.
"So we’ve had people running as a candidate for one party then changing their party once they get elected?" Senate President Louis Hill asked Superintendent of Elections John Abramson during a hearing Monday in Frederiksted of the Financial Services, Infrastructure and Consumer Affairs Committee.
"We have had serious complaints about this on more than one occasion," Abramson said.
Because there are limits to how many candidates one party can field in a given election, when a candidate jettisons their party after the election, competitors raise objections to the fairness of a candidate blocking a loyal party member from running on the party ticket, then abandoning the party right after the election, he said.
This and four other bills were voted out of the committee Monday. Voting yea on moving the election-reform bill out of committee were Sens. Neville James, Terrence "Positive" Nelson, Nereida "Nellie" Rivera-O’Reilly, Michael Thurland and Celestino White. Sen. Adlah "Foncie" Donastorg voted nay and Sen. Wayne James was absent for the vote. Hill was present but is not a member of the committee.
Also forwarded out of committee was a bill to let senior citizens and the disabled ride the public VITRAN bus system for free. The current bus fare for senior citizens is 55 cents.
“We have a lot of seniors who did not necessarily work for the government and who do not get a retirement check," said Sen. Alvin Williams, the bill’s sponsor. Some seniors are budgeting themselves just one meal a day and are close enough to the bone they don’t always have 55 cents for the fare, he said.
Commissioner of Human Services Chris Finch said his department’s surveys showed seniors were more concerned about how frequently and predictably the buses came by than they were worried about the fare.
"It will not help seniors or persons with disabilities if VITRAN does not have the resources to keep the buses on the road," Finch said.
Commissioner of Public Works Darryl Smalls said the department wanted some changes in the bill’s details, but was not opposed in principle.
"I do agree with the bill’s aims, and in some jurisdictions seniors do ride free," he said. "We just need to find a way to offset the cost."
Public Works Deputy Commissioner of Transportation Karole Ovesen-McGregor said letting seniors ride free would cost VITRAN about $108,000 per year at current levels of ridership. VITRAN is already heavily subsidized, though. Ovesen-McGregor said passenger fares generate about $400,000 of VITRAN’s annual $6.5 million dollar budget.
In June, VITRAN carried 14,000 passengers on St. Thomas, 9,000 on St. Croix and 4,000 on St. John, Smalls said.
Voting yea to send the bill out of committee were Neville James, Donastorg, O’Reilly, Nelson, Thurland and White. Wayne James was absent.
Also approved and sent on were bills to move oversight of donated leave for personal and medical emergencies from the Finance Department to the Division of Personnel, to automatically give leave to government employees to attend board and commission meetings, and to make 68 former employees of the Manassah Bus Company full-time government employees. These bills all now proceed to consideration by the Rules and Judiciary Committee.
