It is the intent of Generation Now Inc. to provide an informative, unbiased tool for Virgin Islanders to rate the performance of the Virgin Islands Legislature in its 27th Session. It is our hope that our “Legislative Report” will aid you to “Look Good, Measure Twice, and VOTE. Our Lives Depend on It”.

 Generation Now Inc., through its Public Policy Committee, has produced its third report on the Legislature of the Virgin Islands. Our goal is to increase public awareness of the
role of the legislative body and quantitatively evaluate its success through various criteria. While our mission is to educate the public, it is not our intent to make up the
minds of voters. Our Legislative Report is an additional tool to assist voters in making informed decisions when they go to the polls.

 The Legislative Report has been expanded to evaluate the performance by legislative caucuses and by districts. The types of legislation created during this session have also been categorized and compared to the pervasive issues with which our community is faced. The evaluation process is not one that was taken lightly. Our committee collected information from the Legislature’s website and from each senator and reviewed
bills in their entirety. In reviewing our Legislative Report, the following should be noted:

The analysis of Bills from the 27th Legislature does not contain amendments. We plan to offer this analysis as part of the 28th
Legislature Legislative Report.Bills up to 27-0223 were analyzed. A cut- off point of August 31, 2008 was established to facilitate the data analysis process, since status of bills change constantly.

 Credit was only given to Primary Sponsors of bills. In the case of bills with multiple primary sponsors, each senator was given equal credit.

 While all bills are considered to be valuable, Resolutions and
Honorariums were all deemed low- impact. Budget bills were
deemed high- impact.

 The Executive Branch received credit for bills submitted by the
Governor and introduced by the Senate President. However, in the case of Amendments in the Nature of a Substitute, credit was givento the amendment sponsors.

Generation Now Inc. strives to continuously improve the quality and detail of our Legislative Report. We would like to acknowledge and thank the 27th Legislature for enhancing their bill tracking system that provides the public with information on drafting requests, bill creation, primary sponsorships, co-sponsors, amendments, bill status and downloadable copies of legislation.

Thank you for taking the time to review our Legislative Report. We hope that you will find it useful and enlightening.

Sincerely,
Generation Now!, Inc.

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