Who Are Our Legislators Really Representing?

Food For Thought 4-25-08

Hi friends, this is Harry Blalock; General Manager for radio stations KZMI & KCNM. It’s that time once again to take a look at the issues of the week, and to offer some Food For Thought.

No matter how hard I try to ignore the legislature and not talk about them, they just continue to make fools of themselves and beg to be criticized for it. The only real dilemma here is trying to decide where to start this week. I guess the latest attempt by the legislature to legalize gambling on Saipan is the most logical place to start. I know this may come as a total shock to some of you, but gambling is illegal on Saipan. Then why are there more poker places than Tinian has cows you ask? The answer to that is both simple and complicated. The simple side of it is because we have corrupt and moronic lawmakers who had their hands out looking for “campaign donations” when the idea of slot machines was first introduced years ago. Now comes the complicated part, when the slot machines were first introduced they were for “entertainment” purposes only, and you could only win credits on them, no cash. But that wasn’t good enough, some of the gullible citizens thought they could strike it rich if only they could actually have a chance of winning a huge cash jackpot. At least that’s what they were told by the machines owners and operators. So again, the poker industry pimps went up and had a discussion with the legislature and they decided that gambling only involved games of chance. And because there is a certain amount of thinking and reasoning that goes into playing poker, it then became a game of skill, not a game of chance, and therefore was not considered gambling. Seriously, this is the reasoning they incorporated! And thus was born our non-gambling poker industry.

I always thought that gambling was when you bet money or other goods on the outcome of some sort of game, and you had a chance of increasing your initial bet depending on the odds and the outcome of the game. I decided that maybe I should find out what someone else’s definition of gambling was, so I checked Wikipedia to see what their definition of gambling was. According to Wikipedia, “gambling has a certain economic definition, referring to wagering money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and or material goods.” That’s basically the same thing that I said, only it sounds like it went through a legal department first. So whether you call it a game or skill or a game of chance, it’s still gambling as long as money or material goods are wagered or used. So it’s not exactly a quantum leap to figure out that we do indeed already have gambling on Saipan. But for some, that’s not enough, they figure they could take a lot more of your money if they could take it at blackjack tables, Texas Hold-em tables and a few other select games.

We saw a group gather signatures and put this issue on the ballot in the last election, whether to allow indigenously owned and controlled casinos to operate on Saipan or not. The initiative was soundly defeated. You can argue that people weren’t necessarily against gambling, they just didn’t like the indigenous only angle, but I think it’s a moot point. It was shot down, the people had spoken. Our lawmakers weren’t paying any attention to what you had to say though; either that or they just thought they knew better than you once again. They tried introducing a bill that would seek to legalize certain games of chance for Saipan, to have limited casino operations. Most people were outraged that the idiots on the hill hadn’t paid any attention to the last election, and the Senate promised to kill the bill anyway, because of course Rota and Tinian don’t want any competition from Saipan to their thriving casino industries, and I said that with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek. The first time they tried to pass the bill, it was killed, no big surprise.

But I have to admit that even I was surprised when the issue resurfaced again recently. Congressman and former Speaker Oscar Babauta tried introducing it again, with a slightly different spin, saying it would be the economic salvation for Saipan. It might be the economic salvation for someone, but it would probably just be the casino owners and whoever he had to pay off to push the process through. The House voted on the measure this past Thursday and it was soundly defeated once again, 16 voting no, 2 abstained and 2 voted yes. I think it might be worth pointing out who the two Congressmen were that voted for its passage though; they were Oscar Babauta and Stanley Torres. The two abstentions were Ray Palacios and Justo Quitugua. So congratulations on re-electing these two who are obviously so in tuned with what the community wants. I don’t know whether it’s that they don’t listen, can’t remember, don’t care or just aren’t smart enough to read the writing on the wall. But once again they are wasting your money by introducing and supporting legislation that has absolutely no chance of passage whatsoever. The truly sad part is, that you obviously didn’t learn your lessons in the last election, and you’ll forget these lessons before the next election once again, and these two will probably be re-elected once again, although for the life of me I can’t figure out why anyone would want them representing them.

I read where some of the freshmen lawmakers are getting fed up with the way things are done in their illustrious body; I can only imagine their frustration level. And it is my understanding that the House deliberately kills discussion and won’t allow recommendations or amendments from a certain female freshman lawmaker. Do they really believe they’re collectively better off by not allowing her to be heard or to participate? Do they really think that they are the only ones with all the answers? Aren’t they the ones who got us into all of these messes in the first place? Do they think it’s more important to continue recycling defeated legislation than it is to listen to new and fresh ideas? If our hope truly rides on the actions, thoughts and plans of the legislature, we are indeed doomed!

And that brings me to the other monumental show of ignorance recently by this self-important body. The House of Representatives voted Thursday by a vote of 17-3 approving a resolution asking President Bush not to unilaterally declare a marine sanctuary around the islands of Uracas, Maug and Asuncion. The 3 who voted against the resolution were Representatives Tina Sablan, Heinz Hofschneider and Edward Salas. The Senate unanimously adopted the resolution earlier in the week. I realize there are people on both sides of this debate and issue, but honestly those who have come out against it have motives that are more than a little suspect, and their track records are less than stellar when it comes to the environment. I believe it is always a mistake though to take sides on an issue before thoroughly familiarizing yourself with it. After all, how can you vote on something if you haven’t bothered to educate yourself on it? Do you really think that reading a few letters to the editor in the newspaper qualifies you as being properly educated? Did the lawmakers bother to actually find out how the public actually feels about this proposed marine sanctuary? Did they hold any public hearings on the matter before issuing their resolution? Or do they think they have some kind of ESP that informs them automatically what the majority of their constituency thinks about any particular matter at any given time? Again, these supposed “representatives” of the people decided they already knew what you wanted and thought, and therefore they didn’t need to ask you, they would just go ahead and speak for you, whether it represented how you truly felt or not. In my mind the most prudent thing to do at this point would have been to hold public hearings, do some more investigation into exactly what this would mean for the CNMI, and maybe find out how the marine sanctuary in the northern Hawaiian Islands has been working out.

I guess the thing that really upsets me about this is that once again, they didn’t bother asking you what you thought, they didn’t care. If they really wanted to know, they could have found out, and could have given everyone with an opinion a chance to share it with them. But they once again feel they know what is best for us, and that they don’t need or want your input into the matter.

I guess at this point in time I would have to ask, do you really feel you’re getting your money’s worth out of our legislature? Are they worth all the money we spend on them every year? Are they accurately and properly representing you and how you feel about things? Are they introducing and supporting bills and concepts that are important to you, that you feel will improve the quality of life in the CNMI? Are they spending their time productively and showing positive results for it? Are you happy that nearly every legislator, some of the legislative bureau staff and other government employees take numerous hours out of every week to attend every funeral that comes along, whether they knew the person or family or not? If an employee in the private sector wants to attend a funeral, it is usually on their own time, the employer doesn’t usually pay them when they are out on personal business, so why should government employees be allowed to go and then collect their full pay? After all, we all know the real reason they are there is to buy some goodwill and hopefully your family’s votes in the next election. I even heard a Saipan Senator told a colleague that the best way to get votes was to attend every single rosary and funeral that came along. Is that really what we elect them for? Is that what’s important to you? The next time you see them at a funeral, tell them they work for you and to get back to work, this isn’t included in their job description.

Food For Thought is now available online at http://www.fftsaipan.blogspot.com/ and if you want it by e-mail distribution please send me an e-mail at harryblalock@gmail.com

I’m Harry Blalock, thanking you once again for giving me a generous slice of your valuable time, and allowing me to share my Food For Thought.

The CNMI Legislature - The Root Of All Evil?

Food For Thought 4-4-08

Hi friends, this is Harry Blalock; General Manager for radio stations KZMI & KCNM. It’s that time once again to take a look at the issues of the week, and to offer some Food For Thought.

I’ve been detecting a very marked change in the last several months, many people are completely losing hope that things will ever change or improve here. Up to this point, many of us believed that things would continue getting worse for a while, but then we would turn a corner and things would actually start to rebound and the worst would be behind us. Things have admittedly been very bad here for quite a while. Corruption is not only rampant, but seems to be encouraged as no one is ever held accountable for their misdeeds, and that is something that many people have just come to expect as a way of life when you live in the CNMI. It’s sad that this has become an accepted way of life, because it shouldn’t be this way, and certainly doesn’t have to be. But it is because people continue to put the same old politicians back into office that got us into all these messes in the first place. They continue to fall for the same old campaign promises and lies even though they have never seen them fulfilled even once. For many years I have been saying that the key to any meaningful and lasting change here is abolish and completely revamp the way our legislature works. But we all know that will never happen because the good old boys are not about to give up their stranglehold on power and actually do something that would serve the needs of the people. This is a lesson now being learned by some of the freshman lawmakers who were just elected last November. I certainly don’t think the legislature is the only place in government that we have real problems, but I do believe it is the heart of the problem that needs to be addressed first.

This past week the Lt. Governor and Tony Guerrero, the Executive Director of Commonwealth Utilities Corporation came in to explain on the air what is going on with the utility, why we have been experiencing so many power outages lately, and the general state of the utility. I know they meant for the talk to be encouraging, as they are in the final stages of rehabbing a couple of the main engines and generators, and once they are back online we shouldn’t have the rolling blackouts we’ve been experiencing recently.

But at the same they were sharing the good news about some of the generators finally being repaired and back online, they told about the utilities inability to pay for a fuel delivery from Mobil later that same day. They told me that CUC had only $1 million to pay for a $4 million dollar delivery. They were hoping that they could either come up with the money from somewhere else in government, or that Mobil would agree to some kind of terms. Then they broke the news to me that the utility is still forced to charge the low rate of .17 cents a kilowatt hour to residential customers as a result of the ridiculous law passed by both houses of the legislature before the previous election. You might recall that Tao Tao Tano went up to the legislature demanding that the legislators do something about the high cost of power or the supposed thousands of Tao Tao Tano supporters would vote them all out of office. Our leaders who are full of something, but integrity isn’t it, caved in and voted to lower the rates for residential customers to .17 cents a kilowatt hour, while raising the cost of power to business to .32 cents. They were told repeatedly that this was charging far below what it actually cost the utility to produce the power, but they didn’t care, they were too busy buying votes to secure their income for the next 2 years, or 4 years in the senate’s case. They knew that this would mean the utility wouldn’t have money to make its fuel purchases, but again, they just didn’t care, they were too afraid of being voted out of office if they didn’t cave in to Tao Tao Tano’s demands.

And now the chickens are coming home to roost, the utility had to lower the rates back down as of March 1st, and they are still continuing to bill at that rate. It might be worth noting at this point that the same legislator who authored the bill to lower the power rate in the first place has now also authored a bill to repeal that law. Did he all of the sudden wake up and realize this wouldn’t work, that CUC wasn’t going to be able to buy fuel, or did he only do it in the first place to buy votes before the election? The bill has passed the House and is now awaiting action from the Senate.

But up until March 1st, CUC was charging the higher rate for electricity, and yet they are still $3 million short for the fuel delivery, and that’s when they were supposedly charging enough to cover their costs. The billing cycle for these new lower rates won’t be felt until May and June, which means that CUC will again not have even close to enough money to pay for their fuel deliveries. Are we really supposed to expect Mobil to just keep bringing fuel knowing that we won’t be able to pay for it and that we’re not doing anything to fix the problem? Where will the Governor and the legislature reappropriate money from to pay for fuel the next time? Will it come from your department? Will they cut your job? One thing that I can guarantee you is they won’t take it out of their own pockets or operating expenses.

In the midst of the crisis, we have everybody blaming everybody else for the mess the utility currently finds itself in. The administration would blame the legislature for stalling and not approving their appointments to the Public Utilities Commission. The legislature would accuse the administration of using political favors in their appointments and not appointing those best qualified to serve in that capacity, or those with a conflict of interest. And CUC would blame the legislature for passing a law lowering the rates for residential customers to .17 cents a kilowatt hour, knowing that it costs far more than that to produce the electricity. And in the midst of all the arguing and finger pointing, the situation just gets more and more desperate and hopeless. It’s no wonder that so many people are choosing to move away and start over somewhere else; they just don’t have the confidence that things will ever change or improve here.

It’s very well documented just how cash strapped the government is and how we need to make some drastic cuts just to survive. But you might be interested to know that the legislature is willing to make cuts, but only to you, they don’t even want to consider inflicting any cuts that might impact them personally. In Friday’s edition of the Saipan Tribune there is a story on page 5 entitled “Austerity bill hurdles bitter House debate”. This bill reinstates the austerity Friday program and suspends holiday pay for the 3 remaining holidays this fiscal year. It also reduces the government’s retirement contribution rate to 11 percent, which is far less than the actuary recommended rate of 36.77 percent. The bill also reprograms $6 million from various revenue sources outside the General Fund. This bill is expected to raise $17 million for government operations.

As you may recall from the last round of austerity Friday’s, the only effect that has on the legislators themselves is that it gives them an extra day off every other week, while not touching their pay. So they’ve done it again, they’ve given themselves more time off at the same pay while cutting your pay. And they are also putting off their retirement obligations, and letting another administration down the line have to deal with the deficit to the Retirement Fund.

Voting against the bill were David Apatang, Heinz Hofschneider, Tina Sablan and Ralph Torres, Rosemond Santos was absent. Tina Sablan attempted to make an amendment to terminate government paid mobile phones and vehicle leases, which would also save the government a lot of money. She wanted to make other amendments as well, but was never allowed to introduce them. Representative Diego Benavente voted down Sablan’s proposed amendment, saying that her suggestion might cause controversy and delay passage of the bill in the Senate. Representative Joseph Deleon Guerrero said that this kind of amendment has no room in this legislation. In other words, Tina Sablan’s amendments would take away some of the lawmakers perks, and they weren’t willing to give up any of their own personal goodies for the good of the Commonwealth, they’d rather just have you pay for it. They have obviously learned no lessons at all and why should they? You put them back into office last November after watching them pull all these same shenanigans during their last term, and didn’t hold them accountable or make them answer for any of it. They believe they are truly above the rest of us and shouldn’t have to face the same hardships they inflict on the rest of us. They behave this way because they can. Instead of punishing them for it and booting them out of office, you re-elected them and rewarded them for their greedy and selfish behavior.

Yes, I have a lot of respect for Tina Sablan and her ideas, but the problem is she is vastly outvoted in the legislature, and it is still a numbers game there. Common sense, fiscal responsibility and ethics really don’t have any place in the legislature, and those that employ them and hold them dear will be outvoted and silenced every single time. So as business close because they can’t afford the outrageous power bills being levied against them, and as there are more blackouts because CUC can’t afford to pay for the fuel shipments, you can thank your lawmakers for lowering the residential rate before the last election in a sleazy attempt to hold onto their jobs and power.

If the legislature isn’t the root of all evil, it certainly isn’t far from it!

Food For Thought is now available online at www.fftsaipan.blogspot.com and if you want it by e-mail distribution please send me an e-mail at harryblalock@gmail.com

I’m Harry Blalock, thanking you once again for giving me a generous slice of your valuable time, and allowing me to share my Food For Thought.