One year and seven months after a federal judge declared that multiple provisions of U.S. Virgin Islands elections law were unconstitutional, the local Democratic Party is calling on lawmakers to codify changes guaranteeing autonomy for territorial political parties to elect their own officers and vet their own candidates.
V.I. Democratic Party Chair Carol Burke told the Source Monday that Virgin Islanders will always prefer to have a primary election.
“We like the objectivity of having the government run the election,” she said, but the party regularly fields questions from voters about candidates running under their banner, and there was absolutely nothing we could do. Our hands were tied.”
At issue is a January 2024 ruling which found multiple provisions of local elections law to be unconstitutional. The judgment came after the Republican National Committee and the territory’s Republican Party sued the V.I. Elections Board and the Elections System’s Supervisor, Caroline Fawkes, in 2022. The plaintiffs in that case argued that political organization is guaranteed by the First Amendment and that the internal workings of political parties should be free from government oversight like any other private organization.
Chief Judge Robert Molloy of the U.S. District Court of the Virgin Islands ultimately voided 10 local provisions and found that two others were preempted by existing federal laws. Molloy’s order prohibited Elections officials from enforcing the voided laws.
In a statement sent to local media outlets this week, Burke called the ruling “a turning point for democracy in the Virgin Islands.”
“The people choose the party, and the party chooses its candidates. Anything less undermines the First Amendment and will of party members,” she said. Speaking to the Source Monday, Burke said lawmakers now needed to put infrastructure in place to make elections more transparent and in line with the ruling.
“Meaning that it was codified so that this party has access to the ballot,” she said. “The process would include the party, to define to the supervisor of elections that ‘these 10 people that you have already deemed eligible because they meet all requirements set forth by the government,’ that based on our own standards — and we will have, for instance, their dues, are they in good standing, that kind of thing … there are quite a number of things that we plan to implement — that they’ve met these requirements and as such, they’re certified to run in the primary election as a Democrat.”
Burke testified before the Senate Government Operations, Veterans Affairs and Consumer Protection Committee Aug. 8 after Sen. Alma Francis Heyliger introduced legislation codifying processes for political parties to choose their candidates for public office. Highlighting a voided provision stating that the Elections Board “will be responsible for certifying the process to be used by any political party to select party officers and candidates for public office,” Francis Heyliger said she saw where the law needed to be fixed ahead of the next election cycle. During her own prepared testimony, Burke called the committee meeting “the perfect opportunity to begin to reset and clarify the standards governing the role of political parties in primary elections.”
“This is a pivotal moment — one that allows us to reaffirm our commitment to constitutional principles and electoral integrity,” she said before acknowledging her counterparts in the Republican Party for filing the legal challenge, which she said “opened the door for all parties — Democratic, Republican and others — to reassert their autonomy and responsibility in the electoral process.”
Burke recommended several amendments to the bill, which later failed to advance out of committee for lack of a second. Speaking to the Source, Burke acknowledged the difficulty of convincing elected officials to change the same election laws that put them in office.
“It’s a very, very tall order, but it’s a judge’s order — I mean, pun intended,” she said. “It’s still a judge’s order. They have to fix it. If we have to go to court and get over this, we will.”
Burke again credited the Republican Party for their legal challenge, which she said showed that the territory was operating under unconstitutional laws.
“The way we felt — we felt real uncomfortable. The party should feel comfortable with its candidates,” she said. “I can tell you, we were not always comfortable, and we had members, voters, coming to us and questioning the process. And we kept saying, ‘there’s nothing we could do because that’s how the law is written.’”
St. Croix Source
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