referendum in 1953 resulted in a majority of those who voted supporting an elected
governor, a unified legislature, and a resident commissioner for the Islands in
Washington.7

 After much political maneuvering, a Revised Organic Act of 1954 was passed by
the Congress and signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on July 22,
1954. It was a political disappointment to many because it did not provide for an
elected governor nor a Virgin Islands representative in Washington (features which
Puerto Rico had long been granted) and it retained the Presidential veto of local laws.
To promote governmental economy and efficiency, it did unify the separate legislatures
into one body, a move that was not popular in St. Croix. However, the Revised
Organic Act contained economic provisions that promised substantially greater
revenues for the Islands.

 The unification of the Legislature demanded that Virgin Islands' politics assume
 a territory-wide quality it had not had before. Between 1952 and 1954, three newly
 organized political parties began functioning throughout the Virgin Islands. One was
 the Unity Party, a purely local organization. The other two were local chapters of the
 national Democratic and Republican parties, which had long had small local
 groupings, but had never tried to organize on a large scale. The Republican Party did
 not became a sizable factor in Virgin Islands' politics. The other two did, however, and
 during the late 1950s, legislative control seesawed between the Unity and Democratic
 parties. During the 1960s the Unity Party gained ascendancy to the degree that it
 assumed control of the Democratic Party.

 During the 1960s, the economic provisions of the Revised Organic Act, coupled
 with the policies of the Ralph Paiewonsky administration and the Unity-Democratic
 Party with which Paiewonsky was aligned, brought about a great deal of economic
 development in the Virgin Islands. As economic well-being and higher educational
 attainment became more widespread, and political autonomy advanced in the
 Caribbean and other places in the Third World, many Virgin Islanders increasingly
 thought they deserved more say in their governing process.

 In 1964, on the initiative of the Legislature of the Virgin Islands and the
 Governor, a local constitutional convention was held to create a Proposed Second
 Revised Organic Act. The proposed constitution included provisions for an elected
 Governor and Lieutenant Governor, a Virgin Islands representative in the Congress,
 abolition of the Presidential veto of local laws, the right to vote for the President and
 Vice President, and local authority to amend the Organic Act.

 The proposal was forwarded to the Congress, which took no action on the
 overall document. However, some of its provisions were enacted into law by the
 Congress at various times during the following years. Those included the Elective
 Governor Act of 1968, the Congressional Delegate Act of 1972, and the Constitutional
 Authorization Act of 1976.