Impeachment resolution is sent to full House for action

Ralph DLG Torres

Members of the House of Representatives Special Investigating Committee on Impeachment unanimously voted at their first meeting yesterday to send to the full House for action a House resolution that impeaches Gov. Ralph DLG Torres for alleged commission of felonies, corruption, and negligence.

With the affirmative votes, committee chair Rep. Blas Jonathan T. Attao (R-Saipan), who is also the vice speaker, announced that the ad-hoc committee will be dissolved and its report will be sent to House Speaker Edmund S. Villagomez (Ind-Saipan).

The eight members of the committee are Reps. Angel A. Demapan (R-Saipan), Joseph A. Flores (Ind-Saipan), Joseph Lee Pan T. Guerrero (R-Saipan), Corina L. Magofna (D-Saipan), Donald M. Manglona (Ind-Rota), Christina Marie E. Sablan (D-Saipan), Patrick H. San Nicolas (R-Tinian), and Leila C. Staffler (D-Saipan).

Attao also clarified that, as per the rules, he would only cast a vote when there’s a tie and since all eight members voted in the affirmative to send House Resolution 22-14 to the full House for action, he therefore didn’t have to vote. “But if I had to vote, my vote would have been yes,” he said.

Before the voting took place, Sablan provided some context for the action that they would be taking that day.

Christina Marie Sablan

Sablan said it is apparent that the members of the Committee on Impeachment—Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike—have reached a consensus and agreed to forego any further hearings or taking up evidence and to send H.R. 22-14 to the House floor for action by the full body.

She said this agreement represents months of legislative investigation by the House Judiciary and Governmental Operations Committee into Torres’ public expenditures and allegations of waste, fraud, and abuse of office.

Sablan said that, from June through December 2021, the JGO committee conducted hours of hearings with witnesses subpoenaed to appear and testify under oath. She said the JGO committee obtained and scrutinized thousands of pages of records, documenting the governor’s wide range of taxpayer-paid expenditures, including first class travel for himself and his wife, reimbursements, utilities at his private estate, protective service detail, and use of government vehicles, vehicles, assets, and personnel.

This agreement, Sablan said, also reflects the months of legislative investigation that took place even before the JGO proceedings, beginning of the 21st Legislature in December 2019 with an Open Government Act request by the then-House minority, followed by the appointment of a bipartisan special committee to review and investigate executive expenditures.

“Some of us here today directly participated in these earlier proceedings, or we have been closely tracking them, or both,” she said.

Sablan said their agreement acknowledges that the record is already voluminous, extensive evidence has already been laid out and carefully reviewed, and witnesses have been questioned.

She said Torres has asked for fairness, and that he may disagree but, from their perspective, he has been afforded a great deal of fairness, especially from those who have been part of this investigative process from the beginning.

Sablan said Torres has had multiple opportunities to address the allegations against him, allegations of violations of law and the public trust. The lawmaker said the governor has refused to answer questions and testify under oath, resorting to attacks in the media and a lawsuit against the JGO committee.

“So here we are today with these articles of impeachment, charging Gov. Ralph Torres with commission of felony corruption and neglect of duty,” she said.

Blas Jonathan T. Attao

Sablan said this impeachment resolution is the culmination of two years of “diligent and painstaking legislative investigation.” She said the impeachment resolution didn’t just arise out of nowhere—it is sponsored by five of the nine members of the Committee on Impeachment, and 13 of the 20 House members.

“Perhaps the writing is indeed already on the wall. No one among us takes this action lightly. No one can say this process was rushed,” the lawmaker said, adding that they do have a duty and a public mandate to see it through to completion.

Sablan said they owe the people closure, and that for the JGO committee this is close to the end.

For this impeachment process, she said their steps that day are just the beginning. The lawmaker said given this context, in light of all the investigative work that preceded that day’s meeting, it makes sense for the Committee on Impeachment to report back to Villagomez as soon as possible, and thereafter to place this impeachment resolution on the floor for a vote by the full House.

Sablan is the NMI Democratic Party’s candidate for governor at the gubernatorial election this November. Torres is seeking re-election under the NMI Republican Party.

JGO committee chair Rep. Celina R. Babauta (D-Saipan) is the author of H.R. 22-14.

The Democrat-controlled House is expected to impeach Torres as it has the numbers—two-thirds or 14. In order to convict the governor during a trial before the Senate, it needs two-thirds or six senators to vote for his impeachment. The Senate is controlled by Republicans.

Torres said Thursday that he has every confidence in the Senate’s fairness in case the House impeaches him. Torres said he is assured that the Senate will be fair to him, which is all that he has been asking from the Legislature.

During a public comment portion at the beginning of the Committee on Impeachment’s meeting yesterday, Fabian Muna Indalecio, a known critic of Torres, and Nathan Elliot spoke to support the resolution impeaching the governor.

Indalecio said all the evidence is presented before the Committee on Impeachment from the last months of the JGO committee’s investigation and that they should have been well aware and informed of the magnitude of the damage in terms of public funds that were illegally misused by Torres.

“My question is, are you biased because of party? Are you objective or subjective because of friendship to decide the fate of the governor? Or what is in the best interests of the people you serve?” Indalecio asked.

Elliot, who has been living on Saipan for 20 years, urged the House to impeach Torres, with the saying he should not have to pay for the governor’s electric bills.

Elliot said he feels that Torres is taking from the people and not representing people as he should be. “And if you don’t vote, I hope that people will vote to kick him out of office,” he added.

Under the impeachment resolution, Torres is accused of violating Article 3, Section 19 of the CNMI Constitution.