Amendments to election law struggle in Legislature

Lawmakers in the 35th Legislature approved a full slate of measures during a legislative session on Monday, and debates over several non-germane amendments pushed the deliberations past midnight.

Those amendments were attached to the final bill on the agenda, which authorized a nearly $1.5 million appropriation to the Virgin Islands Port Authority toward pre-construction work for dredging St. Thomas Harbor.

Approved amendments included a $15,000 appropriation to the nonprofit Helenites Sports Club for food, lodging and transportation after the group was stranded outside of the territory following last week’s global IT outage. That outage led to widespread flight cancellations. Other approved amendments included one inserting language into the V.I. Code mandating that the Virgin Islands government contribute $5,000 toward certain funeral costs for veterans.

But lawmakers debated a series of elections-related amendments introduced by Senate Majority Leader Kenneth Gittens, beginning with one adding language to the V.I. Code stating that no person shall be eligible for public office if they have been convicted of a felony or a crime of “moral turpitude,” unless that person has received a pardon.