Clinton admin tried to stop NMI from having delegate in ’94

A portion of nearly 300 pages of Clinton White House documents relating to the CNMI that were released only recently suggests that the CNMI could have voted for its first nonvoting delegate to Congress much earlier than November 2008, perhaps some 20 years ago. In 1994, presidential aides cited three reasons for the Clinton administration “not to endorse giving the CNMI a congressional delegate at this time.”
A Sept. 20, 1994, note from the Clinton White House listed these reasons as politics or “congressional perspective,” “problems in the CNMI” related to human rights and labor conditions, and the CNMI’s “small population” of some 65,000 at the time, “only 23,000 of whom are U.S. citizens.”

In that 1994 note, then President Bill Clinton’s domestic policy adviser Jeremy Ben-Ami told colleague Carol Rasco that he, Ben-Ami, and colleagues “Keith Mason (intergovernmental)” and “Janet Marguia (legislative)” agreed to “advise the President’s Special Representative to negotiations with the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands not to endorse giving the CNMI a congressional delegate at this time.”

Documents also suggest that the White House at the time was looking at the idea of having a shared delegate for Guam and the CNMI.

Another one-page note from White House’s Jim Farrow to colleague Marcia Hale, dated Aug. 29, 1994, said that “the symbolism the issue has taken on suggests it would be bad timing to propose adding another delegate…as Interior may be inclined to do.”

Farrow, however, stated that he “personally think the Northern Mariana Is. should be able to have a delegate.”

He then cited that day’s Washington Post story titled, “U.S. Pacific Paradise is Hell for Some Foreign Workers,” which he said “raises another of the problems a Marianas delegate proposal would raise.”

Long wait

Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP), when sought for comment yesterday, said the more than 30-year wait to get a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives “isn’t unprecedented.”

Sablan cited Alaska, for example, which took “some 40 years between the time the U.S. bought it from Russia and the time Alaska got a delegate in the House of Representatives.”

“There are always reasons: small population, ethnic make-up, distance from the mainland, politics, you name it,” Sablan told Saipan Tribune.

Sablan, the CNMI’s first and so far only nonvoting delegate to Congress, said when the Northern Marianas negotiated its Covenant of Political Union with the United States, one goal was to have representation in Congress.

But the U.S. side in the negotiations would not agree, he said.

“It took us another 30-plus years to get a seat in the House—through Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush again…But, ultimately, making sure that all Americans have some voice in their national government is imperative, if we want to call ourselves a democracy. And, ultimately, Congress made the right decision and gave the people of the Northern Marianas their voice beginning in 2009,” he said.

The CNMI held its first election of delegate to Congress in November 2008. Sablan won that historic race and he was sworn into office in January 2009.

Other U.S. territories such as Guam, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, along with Puerto Rico, were already represented in Congress at the time.

The National Archives and the Clinton Presidential Library released in late February and last week large caches of secret documents from the Clinton White House, and nearly 300 pages of which were about the CNMI’s labor, minimum wage, immigration, and congressional delegate, among other things.

‘Touchy’

In Ben-Ami’s 1994 note to Rasco, he said the issue of territorial representation in Congress is touchy.

He said the 1993 congressional session began with the deal to give the four delegates to Congress the ability to vote in the Committee of the Whole.

“This move by the Democratic leadership was taken badly by the Republicans and set what some consider part of the negative, partisan tone for the remainder of the session. The September before a congressional election is not the best time for the administration to take a position on this issue. No one on the Hill wants us to touch it right now,” Ben-Ami said.

‘Problems, population’

Ben-Ami said the CNMI is coming under a lot of pressure to improve their human rights and labor conditions. He then attached a copy of the recent Washington Post story, the same one that Farrow pointed out about a month earlier than that.

“Until the CNMI have addressed these issues, many on the Hill are not prepared to reward them with a delegate,” Ben-Ami said.

At the time, the CNMI had a population of 65,000, and Ben-Ami said “only 23,000 of whom are U.S. citizens, less than any other U.S. territory.”

Ben-Ami said congressional districts have 500,000 to 600,000 residents.

“Some in Congress believe the CNMI is too small to warrant a delegate. One option you should be aware of is a proposal that the CNMI share a delegate with Guam, which has representation, five times the population, and from which it was separated after the Spanish-American War. However, both Guam and CNMI have reason to oppose this arrangement,” he added.

The pages of documents related to the CNMI were among the thousands of pages released detailing the Clinton White House’s decisions on healthcare policy, national security issues, and on then-first lady Hillary Clinton’s work on children’s issues and women’s rights.