Bad strategy: The ‘We-Can-Fix-It-Later’ syndrome

We seem to have this insidious attitude prevalent in our legislators. There are 20 members in the House of Representatives and the majority of these folks are infected with this sickness. A House bill is sent to committee for comments. Theoretically, the House is supposed to have public hearings, solicit comments from affected agencies, deliberate on these comments and responses, consider the committee report, modify the bill to reflect the concerns of the public and then pass it if they are so inclined. If, after all of this, the legislators feel the bill is not good, they can file it.

What actually is a predominant attitude in these legislative manipulations seems to be, “OK, we’ve identified the faults in this bill, but let’s pass it and we can fix these problems later with amendments.” Rather than rewriting the bill and addressing the problems, the legislators provide themselves with more work later, thus perpetuating their careers; the necessity for a full-time Legislature; and particularly the expense to you and me, the taxpayers. I believe deception of this type is called fraud.

Case in point: The CUC privatization bill (HB 16-77, HSL, HD6, SD1) becomes Public Law 16-17 through veto override. This is the third attempt at legislating the privatization of CUC. The public, the Office of the Public Auditor, CUC, the administration, and the legislators know what the flaws in this legislation are. They are as follows:

-The legislation says that the minimum bid requirement is $250 million, but no professional and independent appraisal was ever made to verify that figure. Where did this number come from?

-This law limits the procurement process to bids only, prohibiting Requests for Proposals, RFPs. Selecting a company to assume the responsibility for providing the Saipan community with dependable power based on a dollar amount only is not conducive to a lasting solution. RFPs require that the bidder provide the company’s qualifications and performance record. A bid does not. Purportedly, the bids-only procedure was to decrease protests by competing bidders, but sometimes these protests are healthy and do lead to better services. To select a company that can supply dependable, reliable power for Saipan on cost alone is foolish. It is imperative that the company have technical expertise; experience with similar projects; and documented proof of previous performance. Bids are only a dollar amount. RFPs allow analysis and the application of good judgment.

-PL 16-17 provides no changes in the qualifications, duties and responsibilities of the governing board of CUC. Persons appointed to previous boards with these same instructions and qualifications definitely contributed to our current state of emergency.

Some legislators felt that the override is necessary to prevent another declaration of the ”state of emergency” by the governor and that the Legislature would be powerless to prevent this. This is pure ignorance and laziness. Simple legislation could be passed that would prohibit sole-sourcing of the privatization of CUC by the governor. Who stands to benefit from sole-sourcing? Some legislators?

I firmly believe that the CNMI should govern its state-like activities without interference from the feds. But all states and territories must consider their actions in light of the U.S. federal reaction. Just days ago, Nick Pula from the Office of Insular Affairs responded to questions about whether the feds could help us with our power generation problems. He said yes, but only if a clear plan could be locally generated to request and justify the assistance needed. He also cautioned against the override as it could be viewed by OIA as meaning that the CNMI does not need assistance. This legislative override ignores this advice. I think that’s foolish bravado.

The override vote was 15 in favor and 3 opposed. Opposed were Reps. Ed Salas, Christina Sablan, and Frank DelaCruz. Oscar Babauta abstained from voting. Ray Yumul was absent. The following representatives apparently have the WCFIL syndrome; David Apatang, Diego Benavente, Joseph De Leon Guerrero, Victor Hocog, Raymond Palacios, Justo Quitugua, Joseph Reyes, Ramon Tebuteb, Stanley Torres, Arnold Palacios, Joseph N. Camacho, Heinz Hofschneider, and Rosemond Santos. Remember these names at election time.

The major responsibility of any House of Representatives is to formulate a detailed budget for government operations for each fiscal year. The CNMI fiscal year begins on October 1 of the preceding calendar year. The process begins with proposed budgets based on anticipated government revenues being submitted by the Executive Branch, the Senate, semi-autonomous agencies, and the judiciary to the House. Then the House, after much deliberation, identifies the amount to be allocated to each agency; how it is to be spent, i.e. personnel, equipment, supplies, contracts, etc.; and who has expenditure authority. Then it passes a budget bill.

To perform this task correctly, it is imperative that the proposed budgets be submitted in a timely manner. In the CNMI the proposed budgets are often submitted late, forcing the House to pass the budget without adequate time for deliberation. Therefore a shoddy bill is passed giving maximum reprogramming authority to expenditure authorities. The expenditure authorities, i.e. Senate bosses, Judiciary justices, and executive agency heads like this flexibility, but it means that the taxpayers’ money can be spent somewhat arbitrarily and is spent with little fear of accountability. This opens the door for government corruption. HB 16-179—the FY 2009 Budget Act—was introduced on Oct. 1 and passed on Oct. 2, 2008. I, along with a few House of Representatives members, object to the one day given for deliberation on this extremely important piece of legislation. I also object to the stipulation in this act that our governor has reprogramming authority over $75 million of the taxpayers’ money. For varying reasons this legislation was opposed by only four of the members of the House. Representatives Salas, Sablan, Hocog, and Babauta voted no. The rest voted yes. Remember the names of those who voted yes at election time.

For our legislators, being paid from our money, to spend an hour, 10 minutes or even less, debating whether or not to censure what was said about them on a local talk show is a criminal waste of taxpayers’ money. Have the legislators forgotten about the guaranteed freedom of speech for which many of the framers of the Constitution died? Who instigated this hour-long, xenophobic discussion? It matters not. What really matters is that it happened in our Legislature. Shame on all of you!