Former U.S. Attorney and congressional candidate Delia Smith claimed in an open letter Wednesday that one of her opponents, Teri Helenese, flouted federal lobbying disclosure law for years. In a statement, Helenese’s campaign said she was hired as a consultant and adviser, not a lobbyist.
According to Smith’s letter, the V.I. Public Finance Authority awarded a contract to Helenese’s company, Titan Impact, roughly seven years ago. The initial agreement included an annual $150,000 fee. That fee was increased in 2021 to $180,000 and again, in 2023, to $216,000. Smith’s camp said the company has received more than $1 million while Helenese was working as the territory’s State-Federal Relations director and Gov. Albert Bryan Jr.’s representative in Washington, D.C.
“Since 1995, federal law requires this kind of work to be publicly disclosed,” according to the letter. “The Lobbying Disclosure Act exists for one simple reason: public awareness. The law requires public disclosure of who is being paid to influence Congress, on whose behalf, and on what issues. It protects the public’s right to see real work instead of taking anyone’s word for it.”
Corporations, special interest groups, states and territories like the U.S. Virgin Islands regularly retain lobbyists to further their goals in Washington. The territory has often leaned on lobbyists while pursuing things like the permanent extension to the rum-cover over rate, an adjustment to the federal cost-share for disaster recovery projects, the St. Croix refinery restart and other federal objectives. Under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, lobbyists are required to register with the federal Secretary of the Senate and Clerk of the House of Representatives and to report any expenditures they make on behalf of their clients.
The nonprofit OpenSecrets, which tracks money in politics, includes disclosures from multiple firms contracted by the Public Finance Authority. Those include Ballard Partners, Callwood Associates, Squire Patton Boggs, Winston and Strawn, and Total Spectrum/Steve Gordon and Associates — but not Titan Impact.
“Because Titan Impact was not engaged to perform federal lobbying activities, it was not subject to the federal lobbying registration and reporting requirements that apply to firms serving in that capacity,” according to the Helenese campaign’s statement.
Smith claimed that the absence of any disclosures “raises even deeper concerns given the number of individuals taking credit for various achievements in Washington.” The public broadside came just one day after Virgin Islanders who tuned into this week’s Government House press briefing were first shown what amounted to an ad for Helenese’s campaign for delegate. The prerecorded video showed her standing side-by-side with Bryan in the nation’s capital. During the video, Helenese said her job as “the next delegate to Congress” will be “to continue to bring the funds home — to help every single man, woman and child in the Virgin Islands.”
“And the good thing about that is: you’re already here,” Bryan told her. “You’re already in Washington working on these issues. We’ve been working on them for eight years. You know the landscape; you know the people.”
Smith’s letter pointed out that “the same federal matters now being publicly credited to Helenese were, in the Governor’s prior statements, also credited to the Territory’s elected Delegate to Congress.”
“Given this overlap of credit for the same work, the reporting requirements of the Lobbying Disclosure Act would have provided answers to these questions, but that disclosure does not exist,” according to the letter.
A spokesperson for the Helenese campaign said they are “confident the facts and the public record will allow Virgin Islands voters to draw their own conclusions.”
