‘Revenue generating bills’ and the House of Representatives

“Revenue generating bills”—I have repeated this phrase about a thousand times since inauguration day in January 2008. I have asked repeatedly that each legislator should come up with a revenue generating bill that creates a new source of revenue, even if it is just a small amount. If we had done our job we would not have the present budget short fall.

During the budget call, departments and agencies submitted their proposed budget. The Legislature knew then that there will not be enough revenue; I repeated my call for revenue generating bills. Reporting on the budget, the conference committee stated that there will be a 10 percent across-the-board cut on operations; I repeated the call for revenue generating bills. I asked during session that before we act on the budget that we take one week to at least pass revenue generating bills to accompany the budget.

Now, the governor has vetoed the budget because there has been an additional drop in revenue. I renew my call to my colleagues at the Legislature: What we need are revenue generating bills.

The reality is that the House of Representatives has fallen short of its constitutional mandate. Appropriation and revenue bills can only originate in the House of Representatives. The Senate can only watch and wait until the House of Representatives passes appropriation and revenue bills. As a member of the House leadership, I am disillusioned by the lack of action by myself and my fellow legislators. I have for the better part of an entire year tried to work within the leadership to see if good bills can be passed into laws. Instead, my patience for attempting to working within the Leadership has been rewarded by an absence of overall vision and direction, inadequate action at crisis after crisis, outright refusal of some members to work with others, chronic absenteeism, a lack of understanding of what legislators can do and ought to do, the lax or callous approach to the increasing suffering of the people, and the constant political bickering and grandstanding of gubernatorial aspirants and their respective factions. All talk; no action.

I did not run for political office so that I could feel good about myself. I have a master’s degree in Public Administration and a law degree. I can practice in CNMI courts and the federal courts all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. I did not need to be a congressman to make me feel good about myself. I did not run for public office for the salary of a congressman either. I made a lot more money as a private attorney. I was not subjected to public criticism. I did not have to fill-out procurement forms to buy office supplies. No, I can definitely say I did not run for public office for the salary.

Why I did run for public office was because I wanted to help people. We, the 16th Legislature’s House of Representatives have fallen short of what we could have done to improve the lives of the CNMI people. We had fresh new ideas from new legislators, two of them attorneys, a social activist, and a freshman legislator as top vote-getter from Precinct 1. We had the benefit of experience from three former Speaker of the House. We had the numerical majority to pass any legislation supported by the leadership, and the multitude of life experience from other veteran legislators.

What have we done after one year? No plan to solve the ever increasing problems in the CNMI. No action to indicate we are in fact doing our due diligence. No real significant legislation that we can point to and say we did every thing we could within our powers to improve the lives of people in the CNMI. I expected more from the 16th Legislature. I expected more from the House leadership. I expected more from myself. To the people of the CNMI, I will endeavor to work harder and do better this coming year 2009.

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