{"id":10190,"date":"2011-12-30T05:36:45","date_gmt":"2011-12-30T05:36:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newspaper.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=10190"},"modified":"2011-12-30T05:36:45","modified_gmt":"2011-12-30T05:36:45","slug":"rolling-the-dice-on-saipan-casinos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/rolling-the-dice-on-saipan-casinos\/","title":{"rendered":"Rolling the dice on Saipan casinos"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>By Haidee V. Eugenio<br \/>\nReporter<\/div>\n<p>With the CNMI economy going from bad to worse, the majority bloc in the House of Representatives and at least one senator believe it&#8217;s about time to allow casino gaming on Saipan.<\/p>\n<p>After the Senate killed a House casino bill introduced by Rep. Froilan Tenorio (Cov-Saipan) last year, the House worked on another casino bill early this year but later introduced a local bill instead to legalize casino gaming on Saipan.<\/p>\n<p>Despite threats of a court challenge from the Senate and amid concerns over the unconstitutionality of introducing a local gambling bill, majority of the Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation voted to pass Rep. Stanley Torres&#8217; (Ind-Saipan) measure.<\/p>\n<p>Gov. Benigno R. Fitial vetoed the bill, saying it is unconstitutional. Fitial, a delegate to the First Northern Marianas Constitutional Convention, said the local casino bill was \u201cirregularly introduced and passed without authority and is invalid on this basis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One of the local bill&#8217;s supporters, Rep. Joseph Palacios (R-Saipan), challenged in court the governor&#8217;s veto of the bill. That court challenge is ongoing.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, two House members-Rep. Ralph Demapan (Cov-Saipan) and Torres-introduced yet another House bill legalizing casinos on Saipan. As expected, the gambling bill passed the House. The Senate Committee on Federal Relations and Independent Agencies is reviewing the bill.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to the passage of the bill, the Senate partnered with the Current Issues class of Sam McPhetres at Northern Marianas College to conduct a survey among Saipan voters. Less than 7 percent of Saipan voters participated. Moreover, there was only a nine-vote difference in favor of those opposed to casinos on Saipan.<\/p>\n<p>While the Senate used to be solid in opposing any legislation that allows casino gambling on Saipan, at least one senator had a change of heart-Senate floor leader Pete Reyes (R-Saipan). Reyes, just like the governor months back, called on senators to have an open mind about allowing casinos on Saipan.<\/p>\n<p>Tinian and Rota voters allowed casino operations on their islands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Haidee V. Eugenio Reporter With the CNMI economy going from bad to worse, the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}