CNMI voters and ‘tipping points’

I have noticed that several of your contributors have recently used the term “tipping point” when describing situations in the community that are also called the “last straw.” They refer to things that happen in our community that can no longer be tolerated by the people. The book written by Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How little Things Can Make a Big Difference, is an excellent way to understand why change happens in a community by reaching a tipping point. I have looked back over the last 10 years that I have lived in the CNMI to see if I could identify some tipping points that have happened in our community.

Certainly, the WTO rules change was a small change in the law that had a huge impact on the garment industry and our economy. We had plenty of warnings that this event was about to happen, the lead time was at least 10 years before the impact hit us. Our government did not react to the change so we went over the tipping point and now we live with the results: a failed economy that no one knows how to fix. It is a sad situation that we are in, and it was the failure of our government to help bring the changes that we needed before the tipping point was reached. It is true that many small things happen over time that has brought us to this economic tipping point, but once we tipped over it is very difficult to get back to where we want to be.

I have looked back at recent history and I wondered what must happen (how bad must it get) in the CNMI to cause the people to change their thinking about government. Our people must take actions (vote) in a way that would benefit them. Many things happened that should have taken us to tipping points that should have brought change, but did not. For example: poor planning and a lack of management by our leaders; the failure of the Retirement Fund; the poor performance of CUC to lower cost of power; the failure of CHC to provide excellent healthcare; the conviction of our leaders for corruption, etc.; the failure to control government budgets, even the governor taking an inmate out of prison to give him a massage—all of these things should have caused us to reach a tipping point when change should have occurred! But these things and many other examples seemed to have had no effect on how people voted. Why does this happen?

The 16th Legislature contained many good people who worked hard to bring change to the CNMI government and some progress was made. Transparency of government was improved, good discussions about CUC and CHC took place and planning was done. There were many fights between the Legislature and the Executive branches, but that seemed better than just being a rubber stamp for the Executive. I attended over half of the legislative meetings and I was impressed by the quality of people like Ed, Heinz, Tina, Arnold, Joe, etc. I considered them to be excellent people who tried hard to reform our “style of government.” The disappointing thing is none of these people continued to serve in government. They were either voted out of office or quit. I have attended several of the meetings of the 17th Legislature and it is not the same as the 16th. It appears to me that the “good old boys” (and girls) and old-style politics had taken over and the gains of the 16th were being lost in the 17th. Ask yourself: Do the bills passed by the 17th Legislature really improve your life and the life of the people in general? No tipping point was reached, therefore no change happened.

Perhaps I have focused too much on the negative things when I looked for tipping points in our community. Good things can also cause great change to improve our community! I have looked for positive change and the one thing that stands out is when the federal government gave us the right to elect our own non-voting delegate to the U.S. Congress! It was a positive tipping point. The election of Kilili has brought positive change to our community’s communication and general relationship with the U.S. government. Our congressional office is responsive and transparent to the people. The result has been increased federal funding for important programs like education, the environment, and infrastructure. Kilili has been a role model for our young people; he works hard, holds village meetings, speaks well, and he supports our people. He feels our pain! The election of Kilili as our representative has been a positive event and it is leading us to a positive tipping point that we can easily see the improvements coming before us. The voters of the CNMI have got to remember that we reap what we sow! When we vote really good people into our public service we will get good results. Using “tipping points” thinking as a management tool could help us bring positive change for the CNMI.