A failed opportunity

The electorate of the CNMI must know that the CNMI Constitution prohibits the automatic promotion of any person to an approved government position or office, and this would include the position of governor and lieutenant governor. All promotions to government positions must comply with standards of the law and Constitution. In the case of the governor or lieutenant governor, Section 7 of Article lll of the CNMI Constitution is the rule that determines how a person would replace the person in the governor’s office or the lieutenant governor’s office, or both.

Three sentences formed the paragraph of Section 7 of Article lll of the CNMI Constitution. 

Sentence 2 is problematic. In the rarest of rare, It is almost impossible than less probable that vacancies for both the governor and lieutenant governor offices occurring at the same time. I could think of a situation where the CNMI Election Commission is confronted with a certification decision of a close election where only a handful of questionable ballots would determine the outcome of the election, and faced with time running out as the inaugural date for offices is only a few hours away. Or, in the unlikely chance the elected governor and elected lieutenant governor are both killed at one time before taking the oath of offices or during the course of term of office. Or the elected governor and lieutenant governor both reject being sworn in to their respective elected offices, or decide to resign their offices at the same time. This is oddly unimaginable by all means, but possible for some unknown and undesirable reasons. It could be in some unthinkable possibility a force so powerful that fatally threatened their existence just prior to their taking the oath of office, or during their term of office. The world is so unpredictable in future global events and the CNMI has entered a huge development ventures in which no one in the CNMI is versed on what all these unknown but possible events taking a toll in our societal order and governmental tranquility. Death before taking the oath of office is not an isolated matter in U.S. history. Perhaps the framers of the CNMI Constitution had this vision in mind as they deliberated the writing of the second sentence of Section 7 of Article lll of the CNMI Constitution. Nonetheless, this is rare, but even rarer than a hen’s teeth as Mr. John Pangelinan said just a few days ago.

Our problem is that the second sentence of Section 7 and Section 8 of Article lll of the CNMI Constitution’s treatment of assumption of office by “acting capacity” for the governor and the lieutenant governor offices’ line of succession is unconstitutional. Vacancies of the governor and lieutenant governor offices do not confer automatic “acting capacity” by any stretch of the imagination concerning a person holding an elected office in the Legislature. It is constitutionally prohibited for a person to hold two elected offices—one as duly elected representative of a precinct and then an office in the Executive Branch that is only conferred by election. Hence, meddling in the affairs of the Executive Branch by a sitting elected representative in the Legislature—or a judge of the Judiciary taking office in the Executive Branch function—is unmistakably prohibited by the CNMI Constitution.

The only cure to this shortcoming and malady is by resignation of the person holding elected office in the line of succession, or through constitutional authority by the sitting governor electing to appoint a person outside the line of succession, or a person deemed qualified as notated by the CNMI Constitution. Hence, no person could assume a vacated elected office in the Executive Branch unless the “acting capacity” appointment is sanctioned and authorized by the sitting governor. Unless absent conflict of separation of powers between and within the three branches of government and meeting the test of avoiding dual posts in government services, any person assuming “acting capacity” could be the lieutenant governor or the governor for the CNMI people. 

In the case where the CNMI government is without a duly elected governor and lieutenant governor, this is the crux of the confusion. Unless by resignation of the person in the normal line of succession as stated in the CNMI Constitution, the resignation is their only “one way” ticket to assume the “acting capacity” of the office of the lieutenant governor or the “acting capacity” of the office of governor. A resignation by the President of the Senate or the Speaker of the House ends their status as an elected representative in the Legislature. Their time of offices ends when the electorates return normalcy in the hands of the next elected lieutenant governor and elected governor. To return to their former offices, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House must wait their chances in the next general election. When this event haunts the CNMI, it supposedly engages the CNMI Supreme Court to assert jurisdiction. Does it mean at the point that the Supreme Court would be free to appoint persons in an “acting capacity” for the vacated governor and lieutenant governor offices?

The alleged wrong committed by the OAG and AG, including our legislators’ unexplained and suspicious silence to all these will become the one big thing that required their lawmaking but failed by default. This imperfect conundrum would dog CNMI history and its people, and scapegoating would not rest in the hands of the framers of the Constitution but in our present elected officials. It is so provided in our CNMI Constitution to correct itself in meeting all vastly constant inconsistencies and vulnerable trying time of governing. A failed opportunity that would prove how inadequate we are in preparing for the maturity of this government.

Francisco R. Agulto
Kannat Tabla, Saipan