Fitial lashes out at Babauta for claiming credit

Speaker Benigno R. Fitial says that once again, gubernatorial candidate John Babauta has claimed credit for a legislative victory in Washington that he doesn’t deserve. Late last week the U.S. House of Representatives passed a new federal minimum wage hike, but the final version no longer included the CNMI, a provision for which the Democratic leadership fought long and hard.

Speaker Fitial said, “There’s certainly credit due for a victory that may have saved the economy of the CNMI, but it should hardly go to John just because he announced the results.”

“What does he say he did?” Speaker Fitial asked. “He wrote a letter. He didn’t actually speak to a single member of Congress. He wasn’t even in Washington when that bill was put together. He was back here campaigning for governor. That may get him elected here, but it had nothing to do with what Congress did last week,” Mr. Fitial said.

“Maybe Mr. Babauta doesn’t know it, but Administration negotiators tried very hard in the last few days to change the House-passed minimum wage language. It didn’t happen, and here’s why. First, our lobbying firm did know. Second, they immediately talked to the Congressional leadership, and to the committee leadership, and explained that businesses would close and the local government would go bankrupt if the minimum wage was doubled. They convinced those in Congress who put together that bill that the Administration was wrong.”

Speaker Fitial said that the CNMI House leadership upheld its responsibilities by not only by writing letters, but by visiting with congressmen and senators in person to urge them not to support anti-CNMI legislation introduced by certain members. One result was a House leadership letter to Speaker Dennis Hastert requesting his help to disregard the request from certain House Democrats to include the CNMI in the minimum wage bill before it was passed last week.

“But our primary responsibilities are to the people of the Commonwealth and that is our place of business,” Speaker Fitial said. “If we were working in Washington every day, I can assure you that every member proposing legislation that affects the CNMI would know what we look like and how to pronounce our names.”

Speaker Fitial said that if the minimum wage fight had been left up to the resident representative, the CNMI would by now have been included in the federal law and worse, as Mr. Babauta continues to campaign, there are still severe threats to the Commonwealth as long as Congress continues to meet.

Mr. Fitial noted that, “an effort was also made on Friday to sneak the Franks [Made in USA] bill to the last appropriations bill of the year. It didn’t succeed, but not because of Mr. Babauta, who is back here campaigning instead of doing the job of resident representative. He’s not in Washington working for us. Because that’s where you have to be, on the scene, talking to the Congressmen and Senators who are making these decisions, if you want to claim credit for what happens there.”

Speaker Fitial suggested that the Mr. Babauta recall the words of the late Tip O’Neill who once observed: “All politics is local.”

“If you want to succeed, you have to do your work and do it where the votes are,” Mr. Fitial said. “In this case, that means that when the CNMI is facing serious threats in Washington, that’s the place to be rather than hustling votes at home.”