These issues might have been raised more vigorously if the Commission
proceeded to the stage of public hearings and a recommended choice. Unfortunately,
the Commission only completed the first stage of its work by issuing a report on the
status options available to the Virgin Islands before becoming inactive.13

 The next step in the examination of the political status issue related to the
voters' rejection of the work of the Fourth Constitutional Convention in a 1981
referendum. Since the issue had been raised of the relationship between domestic
constitutional arrangements and federal relations, the argument was made that before
another attempt to devise a constitution, the issue of status should be resolved. The
political relationship between the United States and the Virgin Islands, after all, would
set the parameters for constitutional choices. To take one example, an independent
Virgin Islands could write a constitution with provisions for an independent foreign
policy. The same would not be possible under the status of statehood, which would
bring the islands fully into the U.S. political system, and make foreign policy the
constitutional prerogative of the federal government. Logically, then, the nature of the
political status of the Virgin Islands should be determined before any attempt to define
local constitutional arrangements.

 This issue was put to the public in a referendum held on November 6, 1982 in
conjunction with the gubernatorial election. The results were that 8,253 voters favored
resolving status before another constitutional effort, and 4,995 favored placing the
constitution first. Hence, of a total of 13,248 voting on the issue, 62% favored placing
priority on status. While these results are an important indicator of official public
sentiment on the issue, they must be placed in context. While 13,248 people voted on
the issue, a total of 20,905 voted for governor, which means that over 7,000 ignored
the referendum question. There was also no significant period of public discussion or
education on the significance of the issue. Nevertheless, the referendum vote would
be cited as one of the reasons for the introduction of the legislation that revived the
status process.14

 A resolution (#1132) was passed by the Virgin Islands Senate on February 7,
 1984 that established a Select Legislative Committee on Status and Federal Relations
 with a highly structured mandate. The Committee, composed of 9 Senators (with
 Senator Lorraine Berry selected as the chair), was to hold public hearings, solicit
 submission of materials, and make a report to the Legislature. The results of that
 report were pre-defined even before the public input stage took place. The report was
 to include a proposed compact of federal relations covering the entire range of U.S. -
 U.S.V.I. issues. It was to recommend a referendum among 5 status options: compact,
 statehood, independence, status quo and other. It was to structure the referendum so
 as to permit the voters to reject specific sections of the compact option while approving
 the compact as a whole.15 Finally, the resolution required that the report outline a
 public education program to precede the referendum, if its recommendations were
 accepted by the Legislature. The language of self-determination was cited in the
 resolution's preamble as one of the justifications for the examination of the status


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