Alleged ethics violations roil impeachment hearing

The lawyer of Gov. Ralph DLG Torres argues that Rep. Tina Sablan’s (D-Saipan) participation in the House of Representatives’ vote to impeach the governor may have been a violation of the code of ethics but it was also pointed out that Sen. Vinnie Sablan (R-Saipan) may have had his own violation for failing to recuse himself from drafting the Senate’s impeachment rules.

These points came up yesterday during the Senate hearing on Gov. Ralph DLG Torres’ motion to dismiss the Article of Impeachment, when his lawyer, Anthony Aguon, presented alleged ethics violations made by Rep. Tina Sablan, who had voted to impeach Torres. The representative is a gubernatorial opponent of the governor this November.

DeLeon Guerrero

However, Sen. Edith Deleon Guerrero (D-Saipan) pointed out that, based on that logic, Sen. Vinnie Sablan (R-Saipan) may have also violated the Constitution’s code of ethics clause for failing to recuse himself from drafting the Senate’s impeachment rules. Sen. Vinnie Sablan has already asked to be recused from participating in the impeachment proceedings, since he is Torres’ running-mate this November, but Deleon Guerrero said the recusal “did not happen until March 28. That is one month and three days after adopting the Rules of impeachment. Is that proper? We want to call out code of ethics violations on somebody else, yet within our own home, we have our own violations. That’s the point that I’m trying to make. We need honor. In order for us to move forward, we have to look at ourselves, nine members of the Senate. Is there honor in what took place on Feb. 25, when a month later, there’s a declaration of conflict. Where’s the honor there? Yet we have the audacity to call somebody else out. Fairness is following the rules. We ourselves in this very house, we don’t follow it. How is that fair and honest, and not a violation of the code of ethics?” she said.

Deleon Guerrero further said that Sen. Vinnie Sablan should have declared a conflict and recused himself before the drafting of the Senate rules on impeachment.

“What is proper is for one to declare its conflict before that joint Senate committee meeting on Feb. 25l 2020, to not participate in the drafting of the impeachment rules and then adopting it within the joint committee. That declaration of conflict should have happened before Feb. 25. But that letter was submitted on March 28, after the fact,” she said.

Sablan

In a later interview with Sen. Vinnie Sablan, he said he voted on the rules of impeachment because it does not pertain to the impeachment of just one governor, but for future impeachments to follow.

“I did participate in the vote for that, of course, just merely to support rules that would drive and direct this process. Those rules could be used in the future. They could be used five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 or 30 years from now. We decided to draft and create rules that would carry out any impeachment proceeding moving forward. As we move forward to, say, the future leaders of our CNMI, they may want to change that. And that will be their decision to do that. At the time, I voted on the Senate rules for impeachment to drive and direct the process. But I saw moving forward that my participation in the actual vote and the decision to impeach the governor, I had a conflict based on the Constitution,” he said.

Overall, Sablan said he stands by his decision to recuse himself and that he believes he abided with the Constitution by doing so.

“I believe, and stand by my decision, that I abide by our CNMI constitution. I’m not going to be participating in the entire process of the impeachment based on what is stated in the Constitution, and I took an oath to uphold that, and that is what I’m doing right now,” he said.