Draft Constitution Heading to Washington
The V.I. Superior Court has ordered Gov. John deJongh Jr. to forward the proposed constitution submitted by the Fifth Constitutional Convention to President Barack Obama within 10 business days of Dec. 23. The maximum amount of time the draft could be tied up is 120 days. Given the rate at which Obama moves, it could be much less than that. I do expect Congress to use up the full 60 days though. The good news: Congress can add and delete by amendment items in the draft. The bad news: they won’t do so quietly. I expect to see the a fair amount of posturing on this since this is an election year. I also expect Congressman Pedro Pierluisi to use our draft in his efforts to garner support for H.R. 2122. We can only hope that when the document is returned to us Congress has deleted the unconstitutional language.
******Update: 12/31/09**********
The draft has been sent accompanied with this letter to President Barack Obama.
