U.S. Congress delegate

“I have a very clear idea of what can be accomplish in office but more than that I have a very clear vision of what should be accomplished for the entire CNMI,” David M. Cing, U.S. Congress delegate candidate, wrote in a recent letter to the editor. Mr. Cing just moved to the front of my social studies class!

Persons vying for the new position by public accounts, in alphabetical order, are: Felipe Atalig (municipal councilor), David Cing (lawmaker), Luis Crisostimo (lawmaker), John Davis (teacher), John Gonzales (public celebrity), Juan Lizama (judge), Pete A. Tenorio (incumbent), Chong Won (businessman), and Gregorio Zablan (Election Commission executive director).

The position of the delegate to the U.S. Congress is that of a nonvoting member, a fact decried in some quarters as nothing but a glorified lobbyist. Nonvoting members do get assigned to committees and vote in those committees. In 1993, a Democratic Congress passed a rule change that allowed voting rights on the House floor in the “Committee of the Whole,” where bills are debated and amended. It was, however, stipulated that if a delegate’s vote was decisive, the committee would disband and a new vote would be taken without them.

This House rule was reversed in the 1995 Republican Congress, and reinstated in the 2007 Democratic Congress, the party identification used here only because lawmakers voted along party lines.

Regardless, with an annual income of $169,300, the position is nothing to sneer at, and hardly to despair about. Nor should the function of a lobbyist be snubbed. Why, lobbyists have been the ones who have been making the decisions for our lawmakers in recent years, writing their bills and even under-the-table-writing their bills! Remember Abramoff and how much we depended on him and his lobbying?

Why else would we have a hue and cry over election reform efforts, especially when it curtails the power and influence of paid lobbyists?

Nonvoting or voting, that is still a position of considerable influence so I would want to choose carefully who I want to represent me in that hallowed chamber of priorities and commitments. Here are my accountability and assessment sticks.

First, I want my delegate be a social prophet, someone who will not hesitate to challenge the primary illusions of the culture, native and worldwide. A social prophet does not cloak himself with delusions of the past, nor hide behind the illusions of the future. He is lucid about the realities of the present and dares embrace them, even celebrate their facticity and givenness, locally and globally. The social prophet is grounded on the heap dung of authenticity, and cares enough to fertilize our imagination with it.

More pertinently, my delegate would have thought about how the Commonwealth’s economic processes of resource utilization, adequate production and equitable distribution be addressed. It means that s/he has a picture of the natural, human and technological resources present and available in our land and waters, and how they may be made meaningfully and significantly productive.

How is the political process of maintaining law and order, recognizing majority opinions and protecting minority rights, ensuring public service for all, going to abide? How is the cultural process of honoring historic songs, signs, stories and symbols, transmitting the same for the appropriation of all, and enlivening the promotion of the diversity that is the moments inheritance, be sustained?

Let me rephrase, as in the words of one of my colleagues at Kagman, to avoid the Berkeley-speak. How does Mr. Cing and any of the candidates see this Commonwealth supporting and sustaining all of its residents, engaging everyone to take ownership of decisions being made, and giving each permission to live the fullness of their cultural heritage, and their personal hopes and aspirations?

Or, more concisely, what images would each candidate share with us about their vision of our Commonwealth’s economics, politics and culture?

Social prophets who rant and rave about what they are not for, or are against, or despair into hopelessness because of the absence or lack of something, trade in the currency of hot air. We shan’t linger too long in the effluent of their posterior; we shall heed closely the concretion of their anterior vision.

Competent Politician

Just as equally important as a social prophet, I expect my delegate to be a competent politician, someone who builds a winning coalition among the existing voting population within the existing political structure. There are many of us who expect our politicians to be social prophets who mouth the ideals we profess, support and advance. Not hung up on ideological purity, I would rather like to see a competent politician who can build the most useful coalition of power in support of progressive values.

We are a population of competing values. Many among us put the safety, comfort and ease of our feelings, lift up the perfumed pedestal of our ideals, and hammer the certitude of our principles first before glancing at the requirements of orderly public discourse. We cry easily in public revealing a low threshold on sentiments; we are quick to digress when interrupted and to disagree when confronted rather than simply reveal a differing perspective. Our legislators even use the cloak of legislative immunity to deliver vitriolic, virulent and vituperative speeches. (Grab your dictionaries, boys and girls!)

A competent politician attempts not only to listen to other perspectives but to recognize them in building the consensus for concerted efforts. The current Olympiad XXIX in Beijing, as has been true in the last four ones, reminds us again that individuals do not compete to attain one-upmanship against other athletes. Athletes excel to exceed the milestone of their last performance, and should that translate to be the best in a class, it will be recognized with one’s national identity. The recognition is not given as a license for uninhibited juvenile bragging rights!

“Form follows function,” the architect Frank Lloyd Wright was wont to say. Running for public office is least about generating personal and family status, nor fame and glory, although God-help-us, our politics is certainly fueled by the grease of clannish and familial relations. It is about the reality an old-fashion word generated long time ago in the marble columns of Athens and Rome points to—“public service.”

In a world where style is given more credence than substance, the candidate’s way of comporting himself in public and how he is perceived as not only one who represents us, but one who listens enough so that he can truly represent us, qualifies as a competent politician in my book. Artfulness in articulating the vision and boldness in formulating the consensus is a definite plus.

So David, and the rest of you guys, go ahead and share with us your vision!

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