Froilan: Fitial had every right to veto local casino bill

Rep. Froilan C. Tenorio (Cov-Saipan) doesn’t believe the lawsuit filed in Superior Court against Gov. Benigno R. Fitial’s veto of the local Saipan casino bill will prosper.

“I can understand why [Rep. Joseph M. Palacios] did it but I don’t think it will go too far because the governor has every right to veto any bill. I don’t like it that he used the language that he vetoed it because it’s unconstitutional. To me, that’s not a good reason,” said Tenorio, a former governor.

Rep. Palacios (R-Saipan) sued the governor on Oct. 28 to have his House Local Bill 17-44, enacted by the Saipan and Northern Islands Local Delegation, be declared by the court as a Commonwealth law.

Tenorio said he was hoping that Fitial would sign HLB 17-44 into law and then leave it to the courts to decide its legality.

“Although the governor had every right to veto the bill, I don’t like it that he used that reason that it would be unconstitutional because that’s not his job to decide. It’s the courts’. I also don’t like it that the attorney general advised him not to sign it on that basis either. The attorney general has no business doing that,” said Tenorio.

He said a good example of letting the courts decide the legality of a measure is the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordability Care Act of 2010 or Obamacare.

“Obamacare was a product of U.S. Congress. More than 50 percent of Congress is made up of lawyers but none of them spoke up and said ‘hey this bill would be unconstitutional.’ No they agreed to get it into law and had President Obama sign it and now 26 states are suing on the basis that that act is unconstitutional. That’s my point. It’s not the governor. It’s not the attorney general. It’s not I who was supposed to decide on the constitutionality of any act any law. It should be the courts,” said Tenorio.

New casino bill, NMC survey

Tenorio, meanwhile, has contrasting views on a Saipan casino bill that Rep. Ralph S. Demapan (Cov-Saipan) plans to introduce and the survey on Saipan casino operations that students from Northern Marianas College will conduct today.

“I support Demapan’s bill 100 percent. If we pass that bill on both houses of the Legislature the governor will not have any justification to veto it because it’s an act of the Legislature. It would be a CNMI law. I happen to agree that in order for us to legalize casino on Saipan it has to be a Commonwealth law or a local initiative,” he said.

Tenorio said he does not support the survey and took the opportunity to take a swipe at the Senate, which thumbed down his casino bill last year.

“NMC has no business conducting that survey. I don’t pay any attention to it. Whatever the result I don’t care. You know why we’re doing it, only to satisfy the Senate. Why should the Senate be concerned about casino on Saipan? Why should they be concerned about how people on Saipan feel about casino?”

Like Tenorio, the Fitial administration is not sold whether the survey is the proper avenue to gauge interest on a local casino bill.

“While the administration supports a profitable and revenue-generating casino industry, it would prefer that this question be posed to the voters in the form of an actual referendum instead of a census or poll. Certainly, there will be questions raised by the proponents or opponents based on the outcome of the result. Some of these issues at hand.will be the number of participants that turn out, or safeguards in place to prevent multiple voting or census tampering. For the most part, there will be much interest centered on how the public sentiment would be measured if not all registered voters participate in this survey,” said press secretary Angel Demapan.