House to pass new Saipan casino bill for Senate action

House Speaker Eli Cabrera (R-Saipan) announced yesterday that the leadership will introduce a new House bill seeking to legalize casino gambling on Saipan, a plan that has perplexed senators who already killed a similar proposal last year and are now threatening to bring to court a local casino bill that they say is unconstitutional.

The new bill may be introduced as early as Tuesday.

This measure will try to combine Rep. Froilan Tenorio’s (Cov-Saipan) House Bill 17-55, which the Senate killed exactly a year ago tomorrow, and Rep. Stanley Torres’ (Ind-Saipan) House Local Bill 17-44, which is now on the governor’s desk for action after the Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation passed it last week.

Cabrera said the House leadership is taking this route again because of claims that some senators asked them to introduce a new House bill for Senate consideration.

But Senate President Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota) and other senators interviewed by Saipan Tribune yesterday denied communicating with the House leadership about a new House casino bill that may be entertained by the Senate this time around.

Manglona reiterated his request to the House to instead pass Senate Bill 17-90, which will ask Saipan voters through a special election whether they want to legalize casino gambling on Saipan.

“There’s a Senate bill in front of the House. I am still hopeful that if they want to do the right thing, they will listen to the people by allowing a special election to ask them the question,” Manglona said.

The Senate president said he has never spoken to the House speaker or any House member regarding a request to pass a new casino bill.

Sens. Ralph Torres (R-Saipan) and Jovita Taimanao (Ind-Rota) separately said such House plan on a new casino bill is a surprise to them.

Acting governor Eloy S. Inos, in a separate interview, meanwhile said the Fitial administration is keeping an open mind on the local casino bill that’s up for the governor’s action.

Inos said the administration has 40 days from passage of the local bill to act on the local casino legislation.

Rep. Stanley Torres (Ind-Saipan) said yesterday he’s not aware of a new House casino bill being planned.

“We’ll see what happens,” he said.

Cabrera said if the Senate passes the new House casino bill, then the House leadership could ask the governor to “set aside” the local casino bill “for the health, safety, and the welfare of our sister islands.”

The speaker said the House leadership is not introducing a new bill so as to avoid the lawsuit that the Senate is planning to file. Some House members wanted the Senate to bring the matter to court now so that the question of constitutionality can be addressed once and for all.

The speaker said he has assigned Judiciary and Governmental Operations Committee chair Rep. Ralph Demapan (Cov-Saipan), Rep. Fred Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan), Rep. Sylvester Iguel (Cov-Saipan) and Rep. Tony Sablan (R-Saipan) from the minority group to work on the new casino bill.

Cabrera said that SB 17-90, which he’s referring also to the JGO Committee, does not address the funding needed to hold a special election.

He said holding a regular election costs $65,000 to $80,000.

But Manglona said the special election the Senate is proposing to be held within 90 days from signing of SB 17-90 could only cost $5,000 to $7,000.

He said the $5,000 will be for a special election for those voters on island, and an additional $2,000 if Saipan residents now living off island will be included.

Manglona said the Senate is looking at a simple ballot with a box for a “yes” or “no” answer to the question whether Saipan voters approve of casinos on the island.

The last time Saipan voters rejected the same question was in 2007.

Manglona also said the Senate is looking at amending or suspending election laws or regulations to allow only two polling places on Saipan for the casino question—one in the south and one in the north.

“The ballots will also be hand-counted to save money,” he added.

Robert Guerrero, executive director of the Commonwealth Election Commission, said in a separate interview yesterday that the figures that the commission is looking at are more than Manglona’s figures and lesser than Cabrera’s figures.

Guerrero said election regulations require more than two polling places on Saipan, among other things.

He said Northern Islands residents cannot be deprived of their right to vote, so the election commission needs to charter a boat to the Northern Islands and this will cost some $10,000 to $14,000.

Sending out and receiving back ballots of off-island voters costs $3 to $5 per absentee ballot, and there are some 1,200 absentee voters for a total of $3,600 to $6,000.

“There’s no formal communication with the Legislature about this, so that we’d know what they really want,” he said in a phone interview.