Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 68 Part 1.djvu/534

 502

PUBLIC LAW 517-JULY 22, 1954

[68

STA T.

mMMgT'and*bud(^) "^^? Goveriior shall submit at the opening of each regular session get. 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 foi* the ensuing fiscal year, which shall commence on the first day of July. di^^app°r^vaf "o1 (^) ^very bill passed by the legislature shall, before it becomes a buis. 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 havt 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 proceed to reconsider the bill. If, after such reconsideration, two-thirds of all the members of the legislature agree to pass the bill, it shall be presented anew to the Governor. If he then approves it, he shall sign it; if not, he shall within ten days after it has been presented to him transmit it to the President of the United States. If the President approves the bill, he shall sigh it. If he disapproves the bill, he shall return it to the Governor, so stating, and it shall not be a law. If the President neither approves nor disapproves the bill within ninety days from the date on which it is transmitted to him by the Governor, the bill shall be a law in like manner as if the President Appropriations. had signed it. 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. (e) 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. Journal. (f) 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. Transmission o f (g) Copies of all laws enacted by the legislature shall be transmitted laws to Interior and Congress. within fifteen days of their enactment by the Governor to the Secretary of the Interior and by him annually to the Congress of the United States. General elec SEC. 10. The next general election in the Virgin Islands shall be held tions. on November 2, 1954. At such time there shall be chosen the entire membership of the legislature as herein provided. Thereafter the general elections shall be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, beginning with the year 1956, and every two years thereafter. The Municipal Council of Saint Thomas and Saint John, and the Municipal Council of Saint Croix, existing on the date of approval of this Act, shall continue to function until January 10, 1955, at which time all of the functions, property, personnel, records, and unexpended balances of appropriations and funds of the governments of the municipality of Saint Thomas and Saint John and the

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