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Reyes says he has no authority to expel Crisostimo
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Posted on Sep 01 2008
Senate President Pete P. Reyes said he has no authority to expel Sen. Luis Crisostimo from the Senate just because Crisostimo is running for the U.S. delegate position.
“As far as I am concerned, to resign is his decision. I don’t know if I have any authority. Our legal counsel has not told me that I have the authority to make him resign,” Reyes told Saipan Tribune.
Some lawmakers have questioned whether the Senate leadership would declare one Senate position for Saipan vacant since the Commonwealth Election Commission had already certified Crisostimo’s candidacy. The senator himself has yet to resign.
Saipan Tribune earlier asked Crisostimo if he is going to resign considering he is one of the nine delegate hopefuls, but the senator refused to comment.
Reyes said he has looked into the Senate rules and that Crisostimo has not violated anything in the rules that would compel him to expel the delegate candidate.
“To expel him, I have to find some violations of law,” he pointed out.
The Senate president said that part of the constitutional requirement for the Senate to expel a member is for a determination that a senator has violated Senate rules.
“Which part of the Senate rules did he [Crisostimo] violate because nobody has pointed that out to me yet?” Reyes asked.
“If we had amended the Senate rules to say that if a person is running for another office other than the position he is currently holding and his term is not up, that the Senate rules require that he should resign, then Crisostimo would be in violation of that rule. But there is no such thing in our rules,” Reyes noted.
If any member of the community feels that Crisostimo should resign they should take the issue to court, he added.
“Any member of the community has a right to take this to court and force the issue,” Reyes said.
Reyes conceded, though, that if he is in Crisostimo’s position, he will resign.
“But I will resign because I feel that my ethics, my credibility, my principle demands that I resign. But it’s not because you tell me to resign or somebody else told me to resign,” he said.
