Descended from an early Hispanic settler, Ron
de Lugo became a fixture in territorial politics
as the U.S. Virgin Islands gained greater
autonomy in the late 20th century. A well-known radio
personality and an early territorial senator, de Lugo
successfully lobbied to create the position of Delegate to
the U.S. House, which he held for a total of two decades.
He proved to be a key figure in U.S. territorial policy. In
the words of a contemporary, de Lugo “left an indelible
mark on the history of the United States territories and the
freely associated states.”1 Barred by the House Rules from
voting on the floor for all but one Congress, he managed
nevertheless to maneuver money and services to the Virgin
Islands and to defend its economic and political interests.
Describing his home territory as “a community of people
of different origins and diverse cultural backgrounds,”
de Lugo sought for his constituents “the full benefits of
our citizenship … just as we have met our responsibility
as citizens.”2
Ron de Lugo was born in Englewood, New Jersey,
on August 2, 1930, to a family with deep roots in the
Caribbean. The de Lugos had emigrated from Puerto Rico
to the Virgin Islands in 1879. Ron de Lugo’s grandfather,
Antonio Lugo y Suarez, was a merchant on St. Thomas,
and his father, Angelo, carried on the family business.
Ron de Lugo attended Saints Peter and Paul School in St.
Thomas, Virgin Islands, before transferring to the Colegio
San José in Puerto Rico. He enlisted in the army for a
two-year tour in 1948, working as a program director for
the U.S. Armed Forces Radio network. After leaving the
military, de Lugo worked in broadcasting as a civilian,
helping to found WSTA, the first radio station in St.
Thomas. De Lugo gained island-wide fame for his radio
persona, the wisecracking comedian Mango Jones, as well
as for appearances in local plays and benefit concerts.3 In 1952 de Lugo used his radio show to revive the St. Thomas
Carnival, a days-long celebration of the island’s cultural
heritage.4 De Lugo and his first wife, Maria Morales Viera,
had three children—James, Angela Maria, and Maria
Cristina—before divorcing.5 James (Jay) de Lugo died in a
car accident in Virginia in 1972 at age 20.6 Ron de Lugo
later married Sheila Paiewonsky.
In 1955 de Lugo moved to St. Croix, where he won
election to the Second Virgin Islands Legislature as an
At-Large Democrat in 1956.7 The youngest member of the
legislature, he embarked on a career of nearly four decades
in Virgin Islands politics. In 1960 de Lugo won election
as the territory’s representative to the Democratic National
Committee. The following year, he took a break from
the legislature when he was appointed by the territorial
governor to act as a liaison for local concerns in St. Croix.
De Lugo returned to the legislature from 1962 to 1966.
In 1968 Virgin Islanders elected de Lugo the territorial
representative to the U.S. government. Essentially working
as a lobbyist for issues affecting the Virgin Islands, de
Lugo set his sights on winning a congressional seat for
the territory. In 1972 the House considered legislation
that provided for popularly elected Delegates for the
Virgin Islands and Guam, who would not be permitted
a vote on the House Floor. Having testified in support
of the bill before several congressional committees, and
having lobbied intensely on its behalf, de Lugo called its
signature into law on April 10, 1972, “a sweet victory” and
considered this one of his greatest accomplishments as a
territorial advocate.8
De Lugo subsequently set out to win the Territorial
Delegate position he had lobbied to create, officially
announcing his candidacy on May 23, 1972. De Lugo was
unopposed in the Democratic primary almost until the
June 1 filing deadline. But at the last minute, Leroy Mercer mounted a challenge, claiming that “scores of Democrats
indicated a desire for a meaningful choice, not only in
the general elections but in the primaries too.”9 Mercer
campaigned aggressively against de Lugo, charging that
the territorial representative had brought little economic
change to the Virgin Islands during his tenure. De Lugo
reminded his constituents of the federal programs and the
money he had drawn to the islands.10 With the support
of the local Democratic organization, he handily defeated
Mercer in the July 11 primary by a three-to-one margin.11
The general election was even less competitive; the island’s
leading third party—Independent Citizens Movement,
which was popular among the mostly poor, black
population—did not field a candidate.12 De Lugo faced
black Republican George Schneider, a U.S. Army veteran,
lawyer, and social worker.13 Both candidates took stands
that were popular with Virgin Islanders, campaigning
on extending federal benefits to territorial residents and
exempting them from the draft during the unpopular
Vietnam War. De Lugo again prevailed with a nearly
three-to-one victory, earning 73 percent of the vote. This
“popular mandate,” as he designated it, was representative
of his re-election campaigns; throughout his career, de
Lugo typically won by more than 70 percent of the vote.14
De Lugo’s arrival in Washington for the start of the
93rd Congress (1973–1975) marked the fulfillment of
one of his campaign promises. Minutes after he and
Delegate Antonio Won Pat of Guam were sworn in as the
first Delegates to represent their respective territories, the
House narrowly voted to give the four Territorial Delegates
a vote in their committees. De Lugo credited the “slick
political maneuvering” of Representative Philip Burton of
California—chairman of the Subcommittee on Territorial
and Insular Affairs, an advocate for Delegate rights in
Congress, and a leader in enacting congressional reform in
the early 1970s—for the addition of this privilege to the
package of changes in the House Rules.15 The Democratic
Caucus, which determined the direction of party policy
and strategy, also supported giving Delegates a vote.16
Along with other representatives for U.S. territories,
de Lugo sought and won a position on the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, where he could monitor
and introduce legislation affecting the Virgin Islands. In his
second term, he added a seat on the Merchant Marine and
Fisheries Committee.17 He was also a founding member of
the House Territorial Caucus.
His first piece of legislation, introduced on February
5, 1973, and co-authored with Territorial Delegate Won
Pat, proposed an amendment to the Constitution that
granted citizens in the Virgin Islands and Guam the right
to vote in U.S. presidential elections.18 De Lugo pointed
out that Virgin Islanders had earned this right, noting that
election turnouts were routinely near 80 percent, “notably
higher than in all but a few communities in the 50 states.”
He emphasized the islands’ patriotism, particularly during
the Vietnam War. “We in the Virgin Islands have recognized
that the rights, obligations, and privileges of citizenship
demand commitment and sacrifice,” he told his colleagues.
“We have unquestioningly risen to the defense of our
country whenever and wherever it has been necessary to
preserve America’s Freedom and to secure liberty and the
right to self-determination elsewhere.”19 The legislation
ultimately died in the Judiciary Committee, but de Lugo
obtained significant support from the Congressional Black
Caucus as a show of solidarity with the black residents of the
territory who made up nearly 80 percent of its population.20
De Lugo sought greater self-determination for the
islands’ territorial government, and he won for the Virgin
Islands’ legislature the right to determine procedure for
filling vacancies. (Previously, vacancies were filled by the
governor’s appointees.) “Direct election by the people
is the only method by which an individual may attain
membership in the House of Representatives.… It is this
fact which makes this body the most important democratic
institution in the nation,” he observed. “If the Legislature
of the Virgin Islands is to truly be the people’s forum at the
territorial level, it must also maintain this qualification.”21
De Lugo also lobbied for a constitutional convention in
the Virgin Islands, which would allow residents a chance
to write their own governing document. He emphasized a
greater need for autonomy in light of the islands’ increasing
prosperity, which paralleled a well-publicized increase in crime.22 His request ultimately passed both houses with
bipartisan support in October 1976.23 De Lugo met with
frustration at home, however, because Virgin Islands voters
rejected the constitution to avoid higher local taxes and the
costs associated with self-government.24
The islands’ economic health depended on de Lugo’s
ability to obtain federal dollars, increase government
spending, and gain greater control over private investment.
Taxation was a significant issue for Virgin Islanders because
they were subject to a unique system; since 1954 the islands’
workforce had paid income taxes under a mirror structure
wherein federal taxes were paid into the territory’s general
treasury.25 The mirror tax system was a double-edged
sword for the islands’ coffers because while the Virgin
Islands received federal money directly, its use of funds was
regulated. Moreover, the territorial government lost money
whenever the federal government reduced tax rates.26 After
major federal tax cuts in 1975, de Lugo helped shepherd
a bill through the House that not only loaned the Virgin
Islands money as a stopgap for its fiscal bleeding, but also
granted the government the authority to levy a surtax of up
to 10 percent of taxpayers’ annual federal obligation.27
De Lugo also sought benefits from social services,
including Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, for
Virgin Islands residents when Congress left unchanged
sections of the Social Security Act that capped spending
limits. Stateside lawmakers noted that since Virgin
Islanders did not pay federal taxes, they should receive
fewer social services. Senator Bob Dole of Kansas
expressed a viewpoint of the mirror tax system shared by
many mainland politicians during a hearing before the
Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on Public
Assistance. “I think the record should be clear,” Dole
noted, “that taxes are not paid to the Federal Treasury;
when we talk about discrimination against any citizen
we have to make the record complete. That is a factor.”
De Lugo responded, “As you know, it has been the policy
of the Congress of the United States that the territories
should retain these tax moneys to help build their
economies.”28 He noted that Virgin Islanders generally
paid more taxes than the average American citizen and cited a 1976 report from the Department of Health,
Education, and Welfare that said, “The current fiscal
treatment of Puerto Rico and the territories under the
Social Security Act is unduly discriminatory.”29 De Lugo’s
testimony convinced both houses to incorporate provisions
to increase public assistance for the Virgin Islands, Puerto
Rico, and Guam.30
De Lugo’s attention to the Virgin Islands’ economy
also focused on securing greater command of its land and
tourist trade. De Lugo sought to transfer the title to Water
Island—the territory’s fourth-largest island, which was then
under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior—to the Virgin Islands’ government to preserve its beaches
for Virgin Islanders.31 He also sought the ownership of
submerged lands, requesting the use of the rules that
applied to coastal states, which grant state sovereignty
out to sea, three miles from the mean high-tide mark.
Transferring ownership to the territorial governments,
he argued, would “eliminate the present cumbersome
and duplicative administrative processes which must
be undertaken before these lands may be beneficially
utilized.”32 He also offered an amendment to the Airport
and Airway Development Act of 1970, calling for more
federal funding for airport construction and expansion
projects in the Virgin Islands, Guam, and American
Samoa. “The Virgin Islands, because of their isolated
position, are uniquely dependent upon air traffic for their
economic survival,” de Lugo told his colleagues. “The
lack of fuel resources and raw material makes the islands
particularly dependent upon the money generated by the
tourist trade, much of which arrives by air.”33
In 1978, de Lugo announced he would not seek re-election,
in order to run against incumbent Juan Luis
for territorial governor of the Virgin Islands, noting that
he had “accomplished about everything I came for, and
then some.”34 He officially announced his candidacy
on March 28 and was confident enough to delay heavy
campaigning until Congress recessed in August.35 Luis
ran as an Independent, although he had been appointed
as an Independent Citizens Movement Party candidate
when popular governor Cecil King died earlier that year. De Lugo touted the federal money he had brought to the
island, emphasizing his responsible fiscal management
and his relationship with Washington. He challenged his
opponent’s spending habits and pointed to the higher rate
of crime in the islands.36 De Lugo hit Luis hard for delaying
and eventually withholding his endorsement of de Lugo’s
pending immigration adjustment bill, and later criticized
him for failing to offer an alternative plan.37 The campaign
soon turned vitriolic, with both candidates depending on
the local courts and on mediators to arbitrate everything
from the debate schedule to the structure of the ballots.38
Voter weariness due to the candidates’ quibbling, coupled
with de Lugo’s “overconfidence” and Luis’s connections in
St. Croix, ultimately led to the challenger’s defeat; de Lugo
garnered just 40 percent of the vote.39 Most damaging was
de Lugo’s weak support from the Democratic machine—primarily his lack of key endorsements from the islands’
senators, many of whom opposed his decision to run.40
After the election, de Lugo returned home to St. Croix
and remained outside the public spotlight, claiming he
was relieved to be “a private citizen” for the first time
in two decades.41 However, in 1980, citing “broad,
grass-roots, bipartisan support,” de Lugo announced he
would run against Republican Territorial Delegate Mel Evans, the former Virgin Islands governor who had won
de Lugo’s vacant congressional seat in 1978. De Lugo
criticized Evans’s lack of bipartisanship, which he noted
had alienated the Virgin Islands supporters de Lugo had
lined up during his House service. Evans’s party affiliation
put the Virgin Islands “solidly in the Republican corner,”
in opposition to the Democratic majority, de Lugo
observed, “When the crunch comes, the Democratic
leadership can’t count on him.”42 Particularly damaging
was Evans’s vote in the Interior Committee against an
environmental protection bill; its failure essentially opened
the Alaskan wilderness to oil exploration in 1979. Virgin
Islands voters, most of whom supported environmental
protection, were angered. De Lugo described the vote
as “a major blunder.” “All the Virgin Islands’ friends
wanted that bill,” de Lugo said. “He voted against every
ally he needs to get money for the territory.”43 De Lugo compared his congressional record to Evans’s, noting that
federal funds for the Virgin Islands had diminished during
Evans’s term. “When I was there, whenever we got money
authorized, we got every penny appropriated,” de Lugo
noted. “It was taken for granted.”44 De Lugo defeated
Evans in his closest election ever, with a narrow 53 percent
of the vote. (He won his subsequent bids for Congress by
comfortable margins.) De Lugo returned to the Interior
and Insular Affairs Committee and also picked up
assignments on the Post Office and Civil Service and the
Public Works and Transportation Committees. He later
served on the Education and Labor Committee and on
the Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control.45
Among de Lugo’s first initiatives after returning to
Washington was a bill on immigration that attempted to
ease the resentment of many native Virgin Islanders toward
a wave of Greater Caribbean immigrants. During the
1960s and 1970s, “down island” immigration from other
Caribbean nations and territories increased dramatically
as laborers moved to the Virgin Islands during the high
tourist season to work in the hospitality industry; the
islands’ population grew 188 percent from 1960 to 1975.46
These workers arrived under the H-2 provision of the 1954
Immigration and Naturalization Act, which permitted
temporary residence.47 Over the next two decades, as
the islands became more dependent on foreign labor,
Congress and the Department of Labor allowed family
members to accompany alien workers. Schools, housing
and welfare and health care services were overburdened
by the surge in population, and the racial makeup of the
labor force which was primarily black, increased tensions.48
In 1976 de Lugo proposed an immigration adjustment
act that would provide H-2 provision aliens a fast track
to citizenship, but the Gerald R. Ford administration
blocked the legislation.49 In 1981 de Lugo pushed through
the Virgin Islands Nonimmigrants Alien Adjustment
Act, which became law on September 30, 1982. The bill
addressed the issue of illegal immigration by ending the
temporary worker program, except for temporary workers
who performed at the annual carnival; by putting legal
aliens who had resided in the Virgin Islands since June 30, 1975, on the path to citizenship; and by creating a task
force composed of the governor of the Virgin Islands and
six federal Cabinet officers to address the burdens caused
by the addition of so many new citizens.50 “The people of
the Virgin Islands should be proud today,” de Lugo noted
just before the bill passed the House. Referring to Virgin
Islanders’ decade-long struggle with immigration issues,
he continued, “For this bill is an honorable and equitable
solution to a very difficult and long-standing problem. It
tugged at their conscience. They wrestled with it publicly
and privately. And, in the end reached this compromise
solution which is uniquely ours—a product of our
community for our community.”51
De Lugo also initially supported President Ronald
W. Reagan’s Caribbean Basin Initiative, which called for
eliminating taxes on goods from foreign countries in the
Caribbean Sea.52 However, he expressed concern about the
advantage this agreement would give foreign competitors
in the rum industry. “I simply cannot overemphasize the
critical significance of the rum industry to the economic
well-being of the U.S. citizens in the Virgin Islands,” de
Lugo told the House Committee on Ways and Means
during a hearing. He noted that an excise tax on rum
shipped to the mainland United States was the largest single
source (18 percent) of the territorial government’s revenue
and that the rum industry employed numerous farmers
and manufacturers. Eliminating duties on other Caribbean
nations’ rum exports would undercut the price of the taxed
Virgin Islands product.53 Though he preferred to abolish
rum’s favorable status, de Lugo admitted “a compromise
is more realistic” and attempted to add to the initiative an
amendment that set a quota for duty-free rum.54 “I think it
is great that the president has said the U.S. Virgin Islands
and Puerto Rico must be enhanced by the policy towards
the Caribbean Basin,” he told the committee. “However,
let’s be realistic. No one looking at this legislation can say
that the position of the flag territories is enhanced.”55 The
amendment failed, 226 to 171. Most of its opponents felt
the rum industry in the Caribbean territories was overly
subsidized.56 De Lugo continued to pursue the issue as
debate on the legislation dragged into the 98th Congress (1983–1985). The final legislation, passed on July 28, 1983,
included specific provisions inserted by the Senate to protect
Virgin Islands rum.57
On September 18, 1989, Hurricane Hugo slammed
into the Virgin Islands, crossing directly over St. Croix
and inflicting catastrophic destruction. Most Virgin
Islanders had no utilities, businesses were closed, and
the airport on St. Croix was destroyed. Ninety percent
of the buildings on St. Croix sustained major damage.
Five people in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands were
killed, and infrastructure repair costs for both territories
exceeded $1 billion.58 “[It is] beyond belief,” de Lugo
told the Washington Post after touring St. Croix, having
arrived with Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) crews on September 19. “The only thing you
can liken it to is a war zone.”59 De Lugo’s congressional
office employed five staff members and five volunteers to
answer the phone calls flooding his office.60 Responding
to reports of looting and threats to stranded tourists,
1,100 National Guardsmen arrived on the island a few
days later.61 De Lugo coordinated the Virgin Islands
Hurricane Relief Fund, initially praising the “Herculean
efforts by FEMA” to aid St. Croix’s recovery.62 However,
he eventually criticized the relief agency’s slow progress,
noting in an open letter to his colleagues that 2,700 homes
still lacked temporary cover more than a month after the
storm.63 The following November, de Lugo introduced the
Hurricane Hugo Emergency Relief Act, which increased
federal spending ceilings on road repair and flood control
projects and permitted the Army Corps of Engineers
to oversee reconstruction on the Virgin Islands and in
Puerto Rico. The legislation passed by voice vote on
November 17.64
De Lugo’s seven terms in Congress during his second
period of service, coupled with his three previous terms,
made him the dean of the Territorial Delegates when
Delegate Won Pat retired in 1985. Moreover, his long
service on the Territorial and Insular Affairs Subcommittee
on the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee allowed him
to take the helm of that subcommittee in 1987, and he
held that position until he left the House.65 As chairman, de Lugo oversaw the political status and the budget for
the Virgin Islands as well as those for all the other U.S.
territories, thus enjoying a greater role shaping policy.
As subcommittee chairman, he was deeply involved in
Palau’s rocky path toward independence. An archipelago
in the South Pacific that was captured from the Japanese
during World War II, Palau had been a United Nations
trust territory administered by the United States. In
1986, at the behest of President Reagan’s administration,
Congress passed the Compact of Free Association, which
sought limited autonomy for Palau, the Federated States
of Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands and provided for
them, should they ratify the legislation.66 However, de
Lugo, then chairman of the Subcommittee on Territorial
and Insular Affairs, sought to temporarily block Palau’s
ratification of the compact, citing corruption and
bureaucratic problems that needed to be resolved before
the island’s independence could be considered. He asked
the General Accounting Office to investigate Palau’s
finances and rumors of scandal. In an attempt to address
these problems, on June 23, 1988, de Lugo introduced
H.J. Res. 597, which provided aid and loans to Palau while
requiring it to retain a special prosecutor and a public
auditor to investigate corruption.67
De Lugo’s legislation met with resistance among his
congressional colleagues. Senator Bennett Johnston of
Louisiana, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural
Resources Committee, and Representative Jim Leach of
Iowa, the Ranking Republican Member on the House
Foreign Affairs Committee, both proposed alternative
legislation allowing Palauans greater independence in
solving their economic and political difficulties. With both
houses at an impasse, there was last-minute wrangling
before the 100th Congress (1987–1989) adjourned on
October 21, 1988. House supporters of the compromise
provision exerted considerable pressure on de Lugo to
accept Johnston’s bill in exchange for the reconsideration of
some of his provisions in 1989. Leach counted aloud as the
minutes ticked off on his watch while he and others crowded
around de Lugo on the House Floor during the final vote
scheduled for the Congress, on an omnibus drug bill. By the time de Lugo accepted the compromise, the time
had already expired. A compromise measure hammered
out by de Lugo and Johnston passed the House in the
final moments of the first session of the 101st Congress
(1989–1991) at 2:40 a.m. on November 22, 1989. The
measure granted Palau its independence and $478 million
over 15 years while allowing the United States to maintain
some military rights should Palauans accept the measure
in a referendum. However, in February 1990 the vote fell
short of the 75 percent minimum required by the Palauan
constitution.68
In 1994 de Lugo retired from politics, returning to the
Virgin Islands. Upon his departure from the House, other
Delegates expressed their appreciation on the floor. Calling
de Lugo “my greatest ally in Congress on political status
issues,” Territorial Delegate Robert Underwood of Guam
said, “Few political leaders in the U.S. territories can claim
the record of accomplishment of Ron de Lugo. Fewer still
can boast of friends stretching from the far flung reaches
of the Caribbean to the Pacific.”69 In 2001 the House
passed legislation sponsored by Territorial Delegate Donna
Christensen of the Virgin Islands to name a federal building
in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, after de Lugo.70 “All of
politics is not sweet,” de Lugo noted at the Ron de Lugo
Federal Building’s dedication in 2003. “It is a mixture of
sweetness and, to do it well, pain.” Asked if he would return
to politics, he responded, “I ain’t running for a thing.”71
Ron de Lugo died on July 14, 2020, in Miami, Florida.72
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
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