President Obama Submits Draft VI Constitution To US Congress
Hearing scheduled March 17 in DC; provisions on native rights, federal sovereignty questioned
President Barack Obama
The draft was submitted to Congress by President Barack Obama on February 26, 2010, and Congress has 60 days to review the document and make its recommendations.
Hearings on the document will be held March 17 in Washington, DC and local testifiers are being invited, according to a press release from Delegate to Congress Donna Christensen. However, based on tight legislative schedules, there will be no hearings held locally to discuss the document, the release said.
President Obama wrote that he had received the draft from Virgin Islands Governor John P. deJongh, and that deJongh had “expressed his concerns about several provisions of the proposed Constitution. ” As a result, Obama requested and received input from the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior whose analysis concluded that “several features of the proposed constitution warranted analysis and comment,” and fowarded those concerns, along with the draft, to Congress. (attached below)
Those areas are:
- Absence of an express recognition of United States sovereignty and supremacy of federal law
- Provisions for a special election on the USVI’s territorial status
- Provisions conferring legal advantages on certain groups defined by place and timing of birth, timing of residency and ancestry
- Residence requirements for certain offices
- Provisions guaranteeing legislative representation of certain geographic areas
- Provisions addressing territorial waters and marine resources
- Imprecise language in certain provisions of the proposed constitution’s bill of rights
- The possible need to repeal certain federal laws if the proposed USVI constitution is adopted
- The effect of congressional action or inaction on the proposed constitution
The submission to Congress was the most recent chapter in the long story of this draft constitution. The draft constitution was completed locally and submitted to Governor John P. deJongh, Jr. in May, 2009 but was not submitted to President Obama until December 31. The submission was delayed until deJongh, who objected to some provisions of the document, was ordered by Superior Court Judge Darryl D. Donahue, Sr., on December 23, 2009, giving the Governor ten business days from the date of his order to forward the document to Washington, DC. (see “Court to Gov.: Submit the Constitution)
But more recently, controversy has swirled around the actions of seven members of the Constitutional Convention, who submitted their own request to President Obama for revisions to the document. According to reports, convention delegates Sen. Craig Barshinger, Robert Schuster, Anne Golden, Arnold Golden, Eugene “Doc” Petersen, Douglas Capedeville and Douglas Brady submitted the revisions without the knowledge or consent of the rest of the 30 convention delegates. (attached)
Christensen said on a radio program Wednesday evening that the revised document never reached the White House and was not a factor in Obama’s review of the document.
It is quite likely that testifiers invited to the Congressional hearing will have a very brief opportunity, perhaps as little as three minutes, to present their information on the rationale of the document. Prior to Christensen’s release, it had been hoped that local hearings would be held on the matter.
Christensen’s release said that efforts are underway to have the hearings televised and available via the internet so that the local population can see the process.
We will keep you posted.
If you think that only on this site people are talking about dewolf and his wife, then you are not walking the streets of the VI. I like that is what you think. we will be sending all of you home.:)
Can’t send me home. I don’t work for the government!
Then we will send you out of the islands
We naturalized citizens have deJongh’s back. We are organized and coming out in full force this election. Absentee ballots will be sent to our white friends in America. Majority rules!Together we can!Let us show you what we’re about.
Stop trying to pin the Naturalized Citizens against the Native Virgin Islanders.
Us Naturalized people come from countries where politics are serious business. I am happy that the Native people are finally opening their eyes and willing to join to get rid of deJongh.
I have sat back and wondered how a group of people can sit back and allow one uppity snobbish man and his group take control of their land.
Native people keep up the fight. Where I am from I have special rights and priveleges that we fought hard for. You need to do the same. This time around me and a whole lot of the naturalized population will vote in the primary against deJongh.
I really appreciate what you have expressed, Anonymous @1:50.
@Anonymous 1:50
Thank you very much for what you said, I have a lot of friends that are naturalized and they always tell me the same thing, as a native I don’t love them less than my other native friends, some of them I like even more.
Antigua allows anyone to buy land. There is no special rights for natives there. Stop the lies. If there were special rights for natives in the other independent nations in the Caribbean, why are they coming to the USVI? The only natives that would benefit from the constitution are the rich land owners like Bert and those who approved the constitution draft. They are selfish and greedy. Ask them if they’ll gives natives who do not have land a piece of their property for free? The delegate from St. John has plenty land. She does not want to pay taxes because she is selfish. Will she give any land free?
Anonymous 5:49 am,
You need to stop lying. Every from the other islands know that their country has special rights and priveleges for their native people.
I am sick snd tired of all of you deJongh people always lying to all of us. DeJongh will be gone in September and I hope all of his supporters will follow. You people are all evil. God bless the VI and God Bless Dominica!
If I am lying, identify a Caribbean independent nation that gives special privileges to natives. Tell us what these privileges are and how many natives leave this utopia to come to the U.S.A. Haiti is the first nation in the Caribbean to get independence and write its own constitution. Why do Haitians risk their lives to come to America?
You mean the child of Chinese woman living on Antigua has some special native rights? If so what are they? Or are we bound by Bert’s self serving definition of who is or is not so entitled.
I worked in West Africa and learn so much about the cause of division. I didn’t see racism per se or defining someone by their skin color. What I did learn was that differences were driven by tribalism. In parts of West Africa the Mandinka the Woolofs, and the Fulani did not like each other.
What is responsible for the incredible genocide and mass murders that continue even today? In my view it is not race but tribalism and in the case of Sudan and the Dufor region, religion. Some blame the Europeans. But Timbukto and the Mali Empire existed in 1300′s supported by slave, gold, and salt trading long before the Trans Atlantic Slavery was to begin. Whether Shaka as King of the Zulus impaled his Basuto male captives and took the women for breeding stock in the early 1800′s or in recent years Robert Mugabe, a Shona from the north liquidated the indigenous Ndebele People of what was then Rhodesia, the 100′s of thousands of Tutsi’s and Hutus murdered in Rwanada, Burundi. First it was the Tutsi Army in 1972 and in 1993 the Tutsi’s were massacred by the Hutu’s Let us not forget Idi Amins genocide of East Indians and members of the Acholi and Langi tribes in Uganda. Idi “Big Daddy” Amin was protected by the Saudi Government in Jedda until his death in 2003. His once beautiful country of Uganda is permanently scarred by his insanity. In three short months in Rwanda in 1994 nearly a million people were massacred while the rest of the world stood by and did nothing. Ironically this was during the time when South African Apartheid was ending through the election of Nelson Mandela and transformation of that country to a multi-racial democracy. Mandela’s and his Deputy President, Frederik Willem De Klerk both received the Nobel Peace Prize and came to refer to each other as African brothers.
In African I found great inter-tribal unity in most cases. However, if you were born into the wrong neighboring tribe co-existence was difficult to find. There is plenty of blame to spread around for everyone for past grievances. My point here is that when does all the hatred and bitterness end? Here is how.
South Africa’s experience and forward thinking of a Boer and a Xhosa leader that came together and shook hands and laid down their difference should set a great example. Today with 11 official tribal languages and perhaps the great cultural diversity in the world with Afrikaners, Boers, Ndebele, Xhosa, Zulu, Sepedi, Basuto, Tshivendi, Khosians, Swazi, East Indians Tsonga, and Mopondo and others living together in harmony.
Virgin Islanders would be far better off for ourselves and our posterity if we stop trying to divide our mulit-racial society. Our future and strength is found in the acceptance of our diversity. We solve so much by summarily eschewing hatred, tribalism, and ancestry worship as an excuse to grant special rights which in reality are a ruse for a grab for power by stentorian loudmouth politicians.