{"id":1447,"date":"2012-02-01T02:52:48","date_gmt":"2012-02-01T02:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newspaper.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=1447"},"modified":"2012-02-01T02:52:48","modified_gmt":"2012-02-01T02:52:48","slug":"palacios-yumul-submit-certified-query-on-veto-of-saipan-casino-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/palacios-yumul-submit-certified-query-on-veto-of-saipan-casino-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Palacios, Yumul submit certified query on veto of Saipan casino bill"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>By Ferdie de la Torre<br \/>\nReporter<\/div>\n<p>Reps. Joseph M. Palacios (R-Saipan) and Ray N. Yumul (R-Saipan) filed yesterday before the CNMI Supreme Court a certified question whether or not a local law enacted by the Saipan Northern Island Legislative Delegation is considered a Commonwealth law.<\/p>\n<p>Palacios and Yumul submitted the certified question after Superior Court associate judge David A. Wiseman dismissed for lack of standing Palacios&#8217; lawsuit against Gov. Benigno R. Fitial for vetoing the controversial Saipan casino bill.<\/p>\n<p>Wiseman had noted in his order that the CNMI Constitution provides the certified question process as a means of redress when a dispute arises between elected officials, allowing an issue to be processed faster before the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<p>Palacios, a member of the House&#8217;s majority, and Yumul, a member of the House&#8217;s minority, filed the certified question without a lawyer.<\/p>\n<p>In their statement of facts, the two said they are following Wiseman&#8217;s directive and seeking redress.<\/p>\n<p>Palacios and Yumul said that Public Law 3-77 states that in case the governor vetoes a local bill, the Legislature may override the governor&#8217;s veto by an affirmative vote of two-thirds of each house of the Legislature.<\/p>\n<p>However, the lawmakers said, if House Local Bill 17-44 was over-ridden by both houses of the Legislature, the enacted law still remains a local law, and the status of the local law in this case remains subject to the issue: \u201cIs a local law a Commonwealth law and what about this relationship to Article 21 of the NMI Constitution?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Palacios, as chairman of SNILD&#8217;s Committee on Judicial and Governmental Operations, had recommended passage of House Local Bill 17-44 to legalize casino gaming by exempting Saipan from the Commonwealth-wide prohibition on gambling.<\/p>\n<p>The delegation passed the bill on Aug. 26, 2011. Yumul voted against the passage of the bill, stating that a local law enacted by the delegation is not a Commonwealth law.<\/p>\n<p>Fitial subsequently vetoed the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ferdie de la Torre Reporter Reps. Joseph M. Palacios (R-Saipan) and Ray N. Yumul&#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-1447","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\/1447","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=1447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}