Fitial meets with House leadership on local casino bill’s fate

Gov. Benigno R. Fitial met yesterday with House Speaker Eli Cabrera (R-Saipan) and other members of the House leadership on a local casino bill he plans to veto this week due to constitutionality issues.

Fitial has until Friday to act on Rep. Stanley Torres’ (Ind-Saipan) House Local Bill 17-44, which seeks to legalize casino gambling on Saipan. Without action after that date, the bill automatically becomes a local law.

Press secretary Angel Demapan said the governor will veto the bill on or before Oct. 7.

Cabrera and the other members, who started arriving at the governor’s office past 11am for the closed-door meeting yesterday, wanted to hear directly from the governor about his decision to veto the local bill.

Fitial, a delegate to the First Northern Marianas Constitutional Convention, said under the CNMI Constitution, “gambling is prohibited except as provided by CNMI law.”

“A local law is not a CNMI law because that local law is only applicable on Saipan. It’s not applicable [on] Tinian and Rota, so there’s your definition of CNMI law,” he said on Friday.

Torres said yesterday he would want something in black-and-white regarding the governor’s opinion and that of attorney general Ed Buckingham on the local measure.

“I want the personal opinion shared by the governor and the AGO about the unconstitutionality of the local gambling bill to be put in legal black and white. I officially asked for this legal opinion three weeks ago and [got] no reply from the attorney general,” Torres told Saipan Tribune.

Torres’ Sept. 12 letter to Buckingham, a copy of which was released by Torres yesterday, asked the attorney general whether his HLB 17-44 is a Commonwealth local law or a Commonwealth law.

Rep. Joseph Palacios (R-Saipan), one of those who met with the governor, said the House leadership respects the governor’s decision on the casino bill, knowing that he was a member of the First Constitutional Convention.

“The earlier recommendation to come up with a House casino bill is not a dead issue. Now we really need to come up with revenue generating bills to get the government employees out of the 64 work hours every two weeks and restore 80 hours biweekly,” he said.

The House leadership, which supports legalizing casino bill on Saipan, would have wanted the governor to meet with the Senate leadership about its concerns on legalizing casinos on Saipan.

The Senate killed a House casino bill last year, saying the decision to legalize casinos on Saipan should rest with voters. The Senate also threatened to challenge the local casino bill in court.

Senators are working with Northern Marianas College students under the Current Issues class of Sam McPhetres to conduct a Nov. 4 special survey on Saipan voters’ view about legalizing casino on Saipan. The Senate decided to go this way since the House failed to act promptly on a Senate bill calling for a special election to poll Saipan voters on the casino issue.

Casino proponent Rep. Froilan Tenorio (Cov-Saipan) said the governor should just sign the bill “and let somebody challenge it in court.”

Saipan voters had twice rejected casino gaming on Saipan; the last one was during the 2007 elections.