{"id":68729,"date":"2018-11-07T11:33:01","date_gmt":"2018-11-07T11:33:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/viconsortium.com\/?p=68729"},"modified":"2018-11-07T11:47:25","modified_gmt":"2018-11-07T11:47:25","slug":"senator-jean-forde-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.viconsortium.com\/?p=68729","title":{"rendered":"Jean Forde Is Voted Out Of Senate"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. THOMAS — Virgin Islanders in the St. Thomas-St. John District voted out Senator Jean Forde on Tuesday night, an apparent rebuke, among other reasons, to comments Mr. Forde made in March, 2017, when he said he would not accept a pay cut<\/span><\/a> as a senator.<\/p>\n

The comments came during a town hall meeting held on St. Croix, when an audience member asked whether senators would accept a $10,000 or $20,000 salary cut. The story, first published by The Consortium, garnered widespread attention. And a video published by VIC was watched more than 32,000 times.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will tell you straight up, that if this job was paying $20,000 less, I would not run for it,\u201d Mr. Forde said during the town hall. \u201cBecause 1), I was making more than that \u2014 as a matter of fact, it is a lateral move for me. 2), It\u2019s because that my efforts, my energy of what I have put in, that I am giving the money\u2019s worth.\u201d<\/p>\n

By then, the audience had started to mumble, a sign of dissent among constituents.<\/p>\n

Mr. Forde continued: \u201cI know this might not be popular to say\u2026. But I\u2019m telling you that I think that I am worth what I\u2019m being paid.\u201d The senator said if he\u2019d accepted the current salary of $85,000 and thought that he was not deserving of it, \u201cthen I would be guilty of some degree of fraud. And I have never defrauded this government,\u201d \u00a0he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd this is not a popular position to take,\u201d Mr. Forde went on, \u201cbut I can tell you that I could not afford to make less than what I\u2019m making.\u201d The dissent among residents attending the town hall was palpable, with mumbles turning into outright audible denunciations of Mr. Forde\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n

Mr. Forde said his aim was to empower individuals, and he pointed to his landmark legislation\u00a0of minimum wage increase<\/span><\/a>. \u201cI believe in empowering people,\u201d Mr. Forde said resolutely, but the audience was in an uproar by then, with the moderator attempting to restore order.<\/p>\n

The senator then pivoted, suggesting that the community\u2019s call for a reduction in the pay of lawmakers, amounted to teaching the territory\u2019s youth that they are not worth high salaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have got to be very careful as we send our children off to become educated, and we tell our children that 1), Your parents are not even worth the salary that they\u2019re making, therefore you simply can\u2019t even make that kind of salary,\u201d Mr. Forde said, which again provoked the audience\u2019s ire. \u201cI am saying that I am worth my salary, and if the salary was less, I\u2019m not going to run for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

When given the opportunity to respond, a resident assailed Mr. Forde.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of us in here are not getting paid and haven\u2019t been paid \u2014 especially a lot of retirees \u2014 what we are worth, and they still owe retirees back money, retro, that no one talks about,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Forde later said he regretted making those comments<\/span><\/a>, but the damage was already done. He placed tenth in Tuesday’s general election Senate race.<\/p>\n