The Virgin Islands is at a crossroads.
On August 1, Democratic voters will choose who carries our voice to Washington for the next two years. And in this campaign, I have heard a theory of the office that I believe is dangerously wrong for our territory: that what the Virgin Islands needs is a delegate in the style of the most extreme voices in the Democratic Party — sharp elbows, viral clips, cable news confrontation, and a scorched-earth posture toward anyone across the aisle.
Let me be clear. That style can work — for members who represent states. A congresswoman from a safe seat in Texas or New York has two United States Senators behind her, dozens of voting colleagues from her state, and the full armor of statehood. She can afford to make enemies, because her constituents’ place in the Union is untouchable. Ours is not.
Here is the constitutional reality no one wants to say out loud. There is no mechanism in the Constitution to expel a state. The Supreme Court settled that after the Civil War, describing America as an indestructible Union of indestructible states. To remove a state would require a constitutional amendment — two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states. It is, for all practical purposes, impossible.
A territory enjoys no such protection. Under the Territorial Clause, Congress holds plenary power over the Virgin Islands. Our disaster recovery dollars, our Medicaid match, our tax structure — indeed our very relationship with the United States — rest on ordinary legislation. A simple majority of the House, a simple majority of the Senate, and a presidential signature can change any of it. This is not a hypothetical. In 1934, Congress set the Philippines — then an American territory of sixteen million people — on the path out of the American family by ordinary statute. No supermajority. No ratification by the states. A floor vote.
That asymmetry should shape everything about how we choose our delegate. A delegate has no vote on the House floor. Our entire influence in Washington is persuasion: relationships, credibility, committee work, and the ability to walk into any office — Republican or Democrat — and be received as a serious person with a serious ask.
Our fellow territories understand this. Three of the four other territories with delegates in Congress — Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands — are currently represented by Republicans. Not because those islands are conservative strongholds, but because island voters are pragmatists. They elect people who can work with whoever holds the gavel, because they know that when you have no vote, you cannot afford to have only half of Congress take your calls.
The Virgin Islands’ agenda in the next Congress is not a partisan agenda. And nothing on it matters more than protecting the billions in disaster recovery dollars still flowing to our territory. Those dollars are rebuilding our schools, our hospitals, our grid, and our homes — and they must keep flowing until our children and grandchildren can feel the recovery, not just hear about it. That is not partisan. Lifting the Medicaid cap that treats our seniors and children as second-class Americans is not partisan. Securing fair treatment for our territory in every appropriations cycle is not partisan. Every one of those priorities will require Republican signatures — on committee reports, in appropriations bills, on the House floor. A delegate whose brand is antagonizing Republicans is a delegate who has disarmed herself before the fight begins.
I spent my career getting results the unglamorous way. I started as a secretary at the Virgin Islands Attorney General’s Office while attending UVI at night. I became a federal prosecutor, and then the first native, female Virgin Islander to serve as United States Attorney — nominated by the President, confirmed by a Republican Senate, trusted to enforce federal law under administrations of both parties. In that job, you do not win cases with viral moments. You win them with preparation, credibility, and the respect of people who do not always agree with you. That is exactly what the delegate’s office demands.
There is a difference between fighting for the Virgin Islands and performing a fight for the cameras. The first requires showing up to markup at seven in the morning, knowing the appropriations numbers cold, and having a Republican subcommittee chair who returns your calls. The second gets you retweets on the mainland while our priorities die quietly in committee.
We are at a crossroads. Down one road is representation as performance — loud, satisfying, and powerless. Down the other is representation as work — quiet, relentless, and effective. Given what the Constitution says about who we are and how easily our circumstances can be changed, the Virgin Islands cannot afford to choose wrong.
I am asking for your vote on August 1. Not to be the loudest voice in the room, but to be the one the room cannot ignore.
