Senate President Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota) told Gov. Benigno R. Fitial that the Senate\u2019s rejection of former senator Thomas P. Villagomez\u2019s reappointment to serve on the Commonwealth Ports Authority\u2019s board of directors complied with the law.<\/p>\n
Manglona, who cited legal advice from Senate legal counsel Matthew Meyer, wrote the governor a letter on June 3 \u201cto clear up any misunderstandings\u201d on the Senate\u2019s rejection of the governor\u2019s appointee.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have asked Senate legal counsel to advise me on the Senate\u2019s rejection, and I am assured it was processed consistent with the intent of the above-named statute [Title 1 CMC 2904],\u201d Manglona told the governor.<\/p>\n
Sen. Frank Cruz (R-Tinian), chairman of the Senate Committee on Executive Appointments and Governmental Investigations, said the governor\u2019s Feb. 15 letter reappointing Villagomez did not reach his office and remained with the Senate president\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
But Cruz said it is the president\u2019s prerogative on what to do with the governor\u2019s appointment letters, saying he respects the president\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
The Senate legal counsel, in his June 3 memo to the Senate president, said, \u201cAs an official matter, all documents received by the Office of the Senate President are officially received by the Senate, and your authority to dispose of such matters is within your purview as Senate president.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs such, no further action needs to be taken to comply with the clear intent of 1 CMC 2904,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Senate rejected the governor\u2019s reappointment of Villagomez, by allowing 90 days to pass without action on the nomination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Senate President Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota) told Gov. Benigno R. Fitial that the Senate\u2019s rejection of former senator Thomas P. Villagomez\u2019s reappointment to serve on the Commonwealth Ports Authority\u2019s board of directors complied with the law.<\/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-152595","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\/152595","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=152595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}