Arguing over dress code may seem trivial, but some lawmakers said the Rules of Procedure of the Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation should be followed all the time.<\/p>\n
During a delegation session on Thursday, House minority leader Diego Benavente (R-Saipan) said the rules have been established to be followed and abiding by the dress code policy affords respect to the legislative body.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not recommending we remove it. \u2026I would argue that we should keep it,\u201d he told his colleagues.<\/p>\n
Rep. Ray Basa (Cov-Saipan) said he\u2019s glad that the body is discussing the dress code \u201cno matter how trivial.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have rules. \u2026We have to abide by the rules,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Rule V, Section 8, Dress Code, of the delegation rules requires all members, officers, and employees appearing on the floor to be \u201csuitably attired. Men shall wear a shirt, tie, slacks, and shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n
But some delegation members have been attending the sessions wearing shirt and no ties. In previous sessions, officers would call for a short break so that some members could get a tie from their office and wear them during the session.<\/p>\n
House Speaker Eli Cabrera (R-Saipan), who was not wearing a tie on Thursday, said what matters is that members wear a nice shirt, and not necessarily with a tie. He said island wear is also proper attire, and that lawmakers should focus on doing their job, including finding ways to generate revenue and control spending.<\/p>\n
Cabrera also said there are some members who wear a tie but wear \u201cLevi\u2019s,\u201d referring to a pair of jeans. But his colleagues later said coat and tie with jeans are now fashionably acceptable.<\/p>\n
Rep. Frank Dela Cruz (R-Saipan) said a \u201cshirt\u201d could also be a T-shirt.<\/p>\n
Rep. Joseph Palacios (R-Saipan) suggested that the delegation chairman, Rep. Ray Tebuteb (R-Saipan), should also specify during calls for sessions that members should come with island wear or tie.<\/p>\n
In the end, members agreed that the dress code should be followed, including wearing a tie, during sessions.<\/p>\n
After discussing the dress code and the appointment of an acting mayor as required by Saipan Local Law 17-8, the delegation adjourned without passing a local bill, although floor leader Pete Reyes (R-Saipan) placed on the bill calendar two zoning-related measures, including one from the speaker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arguing over dress code may seem trivial, but some lawmakers said the Rules of Procedure of the Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation should be followed all the time.<\/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-152645","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\/152645","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=152645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152645\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}