Janelle Sarauw, a former senator in the US Virgin Islands (USVI) legislature, is coming to the US Congress as the territory’s next at-large congressperson. The out legislator won the Democratic primary in August by a wide margin and faces only token opposition in her very blue, island-wide district in November’s election. The Republican primary was canceled.
Sarauw will succeed Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI), who is on track to become the territory’s next governor.
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The senator had a reputation for speaking truth to power in her three terms in office, and generated enough goodwill among voters in her congressional campaign to ride out what could have been a candidacy-destroying accusation of domestic violence by her former partner. The case was televised live in the USVI earlier this year, “like it was the O.J. Simpson trial, and they were able to see firsthand the truth,” Sarauw told LGBTQ Nation.
“I was a bit upset that the press was there initially, but things that are meant to destroy you, He shifts it to work in your favor. So I wish her well,” Sarauw added.
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Sarauw spoke as she traveled back to St. Thomas after an early visit to Washington.
LGBTQ Nation: What do Virgin Islanders expect from their member of Congress? The delegate doesn’t vote. Can she make a difference, and how?
Janelle Sarauw: So the delegate of the five territories and Washington D.C., they do have a vote in their respective committees — that’s where your real work is done in Congress — but at the final passage of the bill, the vote is denied.
You make the difference through work as a committee member, establishing relationships, advocacy, educating. In the course of my life and my career, once you’re able to make a situation relatable, once you educate people, people come on board. So that’s one thing.
And then two, what they expect from the congressperson, I think, is someone that’s going to fight for them. Because we’ve always been quite disenfranchised in the territories. The territories are occupied by people of color, whether they’re Black, Hispanic, or Latino, or Pacific Islander, right? A lot of our federal laws right now don’t extend to the territories. For instance, the Affordable Care Act doesn’t extend to the territories. When it comes to the bill that lowered prescription drugs, literally, it doesn’t apply to us. We are outside of the federal customs zone, so our mail, in many instances, is treated as international mail, so we pay those fees. I can go on and on.
So there are a lot of things that we need equity on, and I think the people of the Virgin Islands are looking for someone to push some level of equality when it comes to our federal status. I think they’re looking for a fighter.
You just departed Washington, where you attended a Congressional Black Caucus gathering. What’s the vibe like in the halls of Congress right now as the midterms are approaching? How are Democrats feeling?
I get the feeling that they’re excited. The House is expected to flip. I feel the Democrats are watching Donald Trump basically hand them the midterm election with the more he does, and the more passive the Republican Party remains about some of his antics. So there’s a feeling of optimism.
But besides being optimistic, there has to be a push for us to really reverse some of the things that Donald Trump did via executive order, or through the Congress with the “Big Beautiful Bill,” things that have had such an adverse effect on the nation. The Democratic Party has to have an agenda.
Which member of Congress made the biggest impression on you on your visit to DC, and why?
Well, I think I would say two. One would be Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-CT), and also Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI), my predecessor.
Stacey has done a really good job advocating for the territory and putting us on the map. So, her work and all that she’s done cannot be denied.
But I would say Jahana Hayes. My mom is a former educator, public school teacher, assistant principal, principal. I’m a former educator, as well. So, to meet the national teacher of the year — she taught history, I taught American history, as well — I think it would be her.
Because she was speaking to me, and she asked me, how do I feel, and I said, “Well, I feel like the kid that you drop off in your freshman year of college in a new city, you know, in a dorm and you make new friends,” and she was like, “Girl, you’re gonna be fine. You’re gonna be fine. You’re gonna make your own shoes,” you know? So, she was very positive, and just seeing myself in her — you know, sometimes we look at our elected officials as elitists. They don’t look like us. They don’t feel like us, but she did.
The conventional wisdom right now is that the Democratic leadership is old and out of touch. Did you see that in your meetings on Capitol Hill, or did you come away with a different impression?
I think right now what I’m sensing is an intergenerational vibe. There is leadership that would be old. I don’t think we should dismiss them because of their age. But there also has to be a balance between the traditional Democrat, the progressive Democrat, the socialist Democrat, the New Democrat. I think there’s space, honestly, for all of those ideologies to exist.
You started your political life as a Democrat, and then you dropped the party to become an independent.
Yes, I did.
You’re running as a Democrat again for Congress. So why rejoin the party? Bernie Sanders is doing all right as an independent.
He’s a US senator, so he is among 100 people, whereas I’m running for Congress, which has 435 members.
And I am a Democrat. I’ve been a Democrat. My ideas are Democratic. I’m a Democrat through and through. But I got very unhappy with the local Democratic Party. I didn’t align with them at the time. The leadership at the time was really tied to Epstein, and that’s a ship that I didn’t want to sink on, right? I didn’t want to be a part of the entire local Democratic Party that received funding from Epstein. We harbored him, we entertained him, we worshiped him. So that style was just something that I couldn’t see myself being a part of, among other things.
But the local party does have new leadership now. They came back and they’re like, “Hey, Janelle, you know, can you rejoin? The mission is different, the vibe is different.” But me rejoining it was because of the leadership change locally. And coming to Congress, I wanted to be aligned with the national Democratic Party, as well.
What’s the worst thing Trump has done since the start of his second term?
Well, what has he not done?
I think one of the worst things he could have done was the “Big Beautiful Bill.” Because the preamble of our Constitution calls for us to promote the general welfare, right? And for Republicans, welfare is okay with the Elon Musks of the world — corporate welfare, which Trump has benefited from.
But when we talk about welfare for everyday Americans, and then we’re putting all these other measures in place? It takes me back to Reaganomics. As you know, under Reagan we slashed almost all of our social service programs across the nation.
We’re a nation that’s already in a social crisis. We have a gun violence issue. The cost of living has increased dramatically. He’s in a war with Iran. He’s in the Caribbean region, in Venezuela, and we’re literally starving Cubans. I’m from the Caribbean — my accent is quite thick — and to watch our Cuban brothers and sisters literally starve, with no energy, no power? And how we ignore Haiti. A lot of things are happening globally, and then to put further strain on Americans who may need that little check to get by? For me, I would say that’s one of the worst things he’s done in his second term.
How have Trump’s attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, and specifically trans people in the Virgin Islands, hit? Is there a sense of distance between Washington and the Virgin Islands that softens that blow, or is it just as hard-hitting?
There’s a huge distance between the policies Trump has enacted nationally and us locally.
In the Caribbean, we’re still very much, “I am a brother and sister’s keeper.” So, in the USVI, we’re very tolerant. I haven’t had to endure the levels of discrimination that a lot of other Americans living in the contiguous United States have. The clergy loves me. They’re my friends. They come and they pray. I call Reverend so-and-so, Pastor so-and-so.
We do have discrimination like we do have anywhere else, but we have been, I think — because we’re predominantly minority and Black — we already know what it means to be disenfranchised. We know what it means to be second-class citizens. But we’ve had our gay Pride parades. A few pastors have walked with us. We’ve had governors who didn’t publicly declare that they were gay, but they are evidently gay. You know, don’t ask, don’t tell.
But for me, being the only out politician, to always be overwhelmingly elected speaks volumes of how we’ve become as a society. So, the blow is softened. Because, you know, I look like my people, I talk like them, I sound like them, I go to Carnival, and I dance among them. So, I think that helps to soften the blow. We are American, but still uniquely Caribbean.
It’s said that a key element of the anti-authoritarian playbook is to make one issue your own. Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) has done that, relentlessly protesting Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center. Do you have one issue that you’d like to tackle in Congress?
I mean, his presidency has been one that’s been filled with self-aggrandizement, one that has been filled with fulfilling the needs of Donald Trump and Donald Trump’s friends.
But for me, what I would like to tackle is the discrimination in our healthcare system, the discrimination in our voting rights, the discrimination in our disaster recovery. Because Donald Trump has been discriminatory, but too often we kind of isolate it, like his attack on voting rights, for example. How do I connect that to the greater American issue and say, like, “Hey, you got some brown brothers and sisters over here who do not have that right at all, who can’t even vote.”
What’s the reason for that?
The reason is the 1901 Insular Cases. The Insular Cases were written by the justice that established Plessy v. Ferguson — the separate-but-equal court doctrine — and they remain in effect today. And those cases say that people in the territories are aliens, and we’re savages who do not understand Anglo-Saxon principles and way of life. They’re not white. They don’t look like us. What do we do with these people? Therefore, the Constitution does not fully apply to these newly acquired American territories that came with the Spanish-American War of 1898 and after, during the Age of Imperialism.
This ruling was supposed to be a temporary ruling, and America was supposed to go back and address it. But since 1901, that’s the law. Hence, it’s why a congressperson can’t vote in the House. I can’t run for president because I’m not a natural-born US citizen, per the Constitution, according to this ruling. We have the highest number of people that serve in the military per capita in the nation, and they cannot vote for the commander-in-chief, including my father, who is a Vietnam War veteran. And the litany of things goes on.
So, my fight for my people will be, “Include me in the programs.” Get us in the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid. If you need a hearing aid for your child or your mom who’s on Medicaid, you can get that in any US state. You go and you move to the Virgin Islands, and those benefits stop. When I hear, “I tackle voting rights,” I never hear any talk about, “Hey, but we do have Americans who live in five territories, and they don’t have rights.” The territories must be included in every single federal program there is.
I think you’ve got a real issue there, particularly if you go back to the racist language in the original ruling. Like, I can’t believe that anyone would let that stand if they knew it existed. But I don’t think people do know that it exists.
The sad part is that the Supreme Court upheld that ruling under Obama, under, I think, Bush, under Biden. Those rulings have been upheld under Democratic presidents. That’s the irony of it, too.
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