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Torres vetoes bill to establish bingo board
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Posted on Jun 14 2016
Gov. Ralph DLG Torres yesterday vetoed a bill to establish a Saipan Bingo Board that came with restrictions on bingo game operations, new criminal offenses and penalties against violators.
Torres said the bill, House Local Bill 19-55, contained numerous significant constitutional deficiencies, in his veto message yesterday.
Torres said that legislative delegations may not create local municipal agencies without the approval of voters in their respective senatorial districts, per the Commonwealth Constitution, and that the Saipan Bingo Board fell within this category of local agency that required such direct approval.
The bill’s criminal penalties, Torres also said, fall outside the lawmaking authority of legislative delegations. Citing previous law, delegations are only responsible to regulate bingo games by controlling the conduct of bingo games in their districts.
This does not encompass the criminalization of conduct by either fine or imprisonment, Torres said. It also does not include directing the Department of Public Safety to enforce the local criminal statute.
Another “fatal flaw,” Torres said, was the absence of language that the funds collected would be used exclusively for the island of Saipan.
The local bill only provides that the funds be expended in the Third Senatorial District, he said.
“Lastly, the bill would sidestep the governor’s approval for the use of funds by allowing the delegation to approve expenditures through the passage of a mere local resolution,” Torres said.
“The Local Law Act of 1983, as amended, requires the appropriation of funds through the enactment of a local appropriation bill, not a local resolution.’
