48 USC 1575 – Legislative procedure
(a) Quorum and method of voting on bills
The number of members of the legislature needed to constitute a quorum shall be determined by the laws of the Virgin Islands. No bill shall become a law unless it shall have been passed at a meeting, at which a quorum was present, by the affirmative vote of a majority of the members present and voting, which vote shall be by yeas and nays.
(b) Enacting clause of acts
Terms Used In 48 USC 1575
- Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
- Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
- Quorum: The number of legislators that must be present to do business.
- State: means a State, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or any other territory or possession of the United States. See 1 USC 7
- Virgin Islands: as used in this chapter , shall apply to and include the territorial domain, islands, cays, and waters acquired by the United States through cession of the Danish West Indian Islands by the convention between the United States of America and His Majesty the King of Denmark entered into August 4, 1916, and ratified by the Senate on September 7, 1916 (39 Stat. See 48 USC 1541
The enacting clause of all acts shall be as follows: “Be it enacted by the Legislature of the Virgin Islands”.
(c) Governor’s message and budget
The Governor shall submit at the opening of each regular session of the legislature a message on the state of the Virgin Islands and a budget of estimated receipts and expenditures, which shall be the basis of the appropriation bills for the ensuing fiscal year, which shall commence on the first day of July or such other date as the Legislature of the Virgin Islands may determine.
(d) Approval and disapproval of bills
Every bill passed by the legislature shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the Governor. If the Governor approves the bill, he shall sign it. If the Governor disapproves the bill, he shall, except as hereinafter provided, return it, with his objections, to the legislature within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him. If the Governor does not return the bill within such period, it shall be a law in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the legislature by adjournment prevents its return, in which case it shall be a law if signed by the Governor within thirty days after it shall have been presented to him; otherwise it shall not be a law. When a bill is returned by the Governor to the legislature with his objections, the legislature shall enter his objections at large on its journal and, upon motion of a member of the legislature, proceed to reconsider the bill. If, after such reconsideration, two-thirds of all the members of the legislature pass the bill, it shall be a law. If any bill presented to the Governor contains several items of appropriation of money, he may object to one or more of such items, or any part or parts, portion or portions thereof, while approving the other items, parts, or portions of the bill. In such a case he shall append to the bill, at the time of signing it, a statement of the items, or parts or portions thereof, to which he objects, and the items, or parts or portions thereof, so objected to shall not take effect, unless the legislature, after reconsideration upon motion of a member thereof, passes such items, parts, or portions so objected to by a vote of two-thirds of all the members of the legislature.
(e) Use of prior appropriations upon failure to pass appropriation bills
If at the termination of any fiscal year the legislature shall have failed to pass appropriation bills providing for payment of the obligations and necessary current expenses of the government of the Virgin Islands for the ensuing fiscal year, then the several sums appropriated in the last appropriation bills for the objects and purposes therein specified, so far as the same may be applicable, shall be deemed to be reappropriated item by item.
(f) Journal of proceedings; contents
The legislature shall keep a journal of its proceedings and publish the same. Every bill passed by the legislature and the yeas and nays on any question shall be entered on the journal.
(g) Transmittal of laws to Congress
A listing of all laws enacted by the legislature each year shall be transmitted with the annual report to Congress required pursuant to section 1591 of this title.