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New House casino bill to be pre-filed this week
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Posted on Oct 05 2011
By Haidee V. Eugenio
Reporter
Reporter
Members of the House leadership will pre-file a new House bill seeking to legalize casino gaming on Saipan as early as this week, even as Gov. Benigno R. Fitial is poised to veto a local casino bill between today and Friday.
Rep. Stanley Torres (Ind-Saipan) and vice speaker Felicidad Ogumoro (Cov-Saipan) separately said they were among the co-sponsors of the new local bill, whose main author is Rep. Ralph Demapan (Cov-Saipan).
Torres and Ogumoro said the new House bill will have many of the provisions of Torres’ local bill.
A previous House casino bill authored by Rep. Froilan Tenorio (Cov-Saipan) was killed by the Senate, which wants Saipan voters to make the decision whether they want casino gaming be allowed on Saipan.
Torres, author of the local casino bill that the governor said he will veto, reiterated yesterday that he would still like to see a written legal opinion from the attorney general on the constitutionality of his House Local Bill 17-44.
Fitial, who has until Friday to act on the local casino bill or it automatically becomes a local law, said a local casino bill is “unconstitutional.” As a delegate to the First Northern Marianas Constitutional Convention, Fitial said that “gambling is prohibited except as provided by CNMI law” and not by local law.
After Fitial met with House Speaker Eli Cabrera (R-Saipan) and other House leadership members on the casino issue on Monday, Senate President Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota) and other senators also met with the governor yesterday.
But Manglona said the meeting with the governor was “99 percent about the hospital corporation, specifically the appointees to the board” needing Senate confirmation.
The Senate president said the casino issue was only “mentioned,” and there was no call from the governor for the Senate to pass the new casino bill that the House is now working on.
The Senate tapped Northern Marianas College students under the Current Issues class of Sam McPhetres to conduct a Nov. 4 special survey on Saipan voters’ view about legalizing casinos on Saipan.
Saipan voters have twice rejected casino gaming on Saipan; the last one was during the 2007 elections.
