The blow from the US Senate

The U.S. Senate passed a federal takeover bill for the first time in history. This news comes as a tremendous blow to our hopes of retaining our local self-government and protecting our local economy. Indeed, it comes as a mighty shock to many of us. It is an alarming political disaster. Naturally, a few reactions are in order.

Reaction # 1: Where is Resident Representative Juan Nekai Babauta? What did he do to try and prevent this calamity from happening? How could he let this happen to us? Was the Marine Scout recognition issue really more pressing than averting a federal takeover disaster?

What is Mr. Babauta doing with the $1.5 million we give him to lobby for our interests in Washington, D.C.? Exactly how long has Mr. Babauta been in Washington? What did he do with the millions of dollars we gave him over the many years he has “represented” us in Washington? Did he contribute most of it to Hawaii Senator Danny
Akaka’s re-election campaign? How can we elect Mr. Babauta to the governor’s seat if he can’t even represent us in Washington?

Perhaps the CNMI government should cut off Mr. Babauta’s $1.5 million annual budget and redirect those funds to Preston Gates.

Reaction # 2: Why is the present administration continuing on with its so-called labor “reforms”? Isn’t it painfully obvious that the labor moratorium is only hurting our local business community and our economy, while having absolutely no impact on federal thinking and policy-making?

The feds don’t care about the labor moratorium. It is not encouraging them at all. Senator Akaka is motivated by partisan politics, not badly needed reforms.

Reaction # 3: Maybe former Governor Froilan C. Tenorio was right. If the federal government does vote to impose a federal takeover, perhaps we should very seriously consider Independence from the United States.

The great promise of our relationship with the United States is the hope of security and liberty. But once the United States ceases to be the United States, once it turns away from its fundamental and sacred democratic principles, that promise then becomes a betrayal–a lie.

As Thomas Jefferson wrote in The Declaration of Independence, “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government.”

The US Senate did not vote with our Consent. It voted to deprive us of our Consent.