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More signatures for ‘transparent Legislature’ petition
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Posted on Jun 06 2008
Nearly 300 more signatures were submitted yesterday in support of a citizen petition for a more transparent Legislature.
Most of the new signatures were collected on Tinian. They were added to the 2,500 signatures previously filed with the Attorney General’s Office.
Rep. Tina Sablan, who started the petition as a private citizen last year, said more signatures are expected from Rota.
Though the Open Government Act applies to all other government agencies, the Legislature passed a law in 1994 to exempt itself from the act’s provisions. The petition calls for a law re-applying the government transparency law to the Legislature.
Sablan hopes the initiative can be placed on the ballot in the November election for the Northern Marianas’ first delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives. However, it is not clear whether initiatives will be allowed on the ballot for the federally mandated election.
The Constitution requires that popular initiatives to amend a general law should be placed on the ballot at a regular general election. There is an unresolved legal question as to whether the federal election in November is considered a “regular general” election.
“But of course, the first step is to transmit the signatures,” said Sablan.
To get placed on the ballot, a popular initiative to amend a law must include the signatures of at least 20 percent of the certified voters.
When Sablan started the petition last year, she gathered only 2,500 signatures. It was about 500 signatures short of the requirement.
But because of the low turnout in the November 2007 election, the 20-percent requirement was reduced to 2,400 signatures. Voters who fail to participate in an election are automatically removed from the voters list.
