{"id":30903,"date":"2014-03-27T14:12:16","date_gmt":"2014-03-27T06:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tribune.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=30903"},"modified":"2014-03-27T14:12:16","modified_gmt":"2014-03-27T06:12:16","slug":"maratita-moves-scrap-casino-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/maratita-moves-scrap-casino-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Maratita moves to scrap casino law"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 13px;\">Rep. Janet Maratita (Ind-Saipan) prefiled yesterday a bill repealing in its entirety the now 6-day-old Saipan casino law, saying the decision whether or not to legalize casino gaming on Saipan \u201cshould be left to the people to vote by ballot.\u201d<\/span><br \/>\nSaipan voters have already twice rejected proposals to legalize casinos on the island, and lawmakers should \u201cyield to the wishes and desires of their constituents,\u201d Maratita said.<\/p>\n<p>As to the lack of public hearings on the casino bill, Maratita said the Legislature should \u201coperate in terms of transparency, not secrecy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe should uphold the Open Government Act, both the letter and spirit. Public Law 18-38 represents neither transparency nor public input. It ignored the peoples\u2019 will. It should be repealed,\u201d Maratita added.<\/p>\n<p>She cited, for example, closed-door meetings involving only certain lawmakers regarding the proposed amendments.<\/p>\n<p>Even the amendment bill, she said, \u201cdid not have the benefit of a public hearing or input from the community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Maratita introduced House Bill 18-183 only a few minutes after House floor leader Ralph Demapan (Cov-Saipan) introduced HB 18-182, which seeks to amend the casino law, Public Law 18-38.<\/p>\n<p>Demapan\u2019s casino amendment bill, however, passed the House last night and could also pass the Senate as early as today.<\/p>\n<p>Before the session adjourned past 7 last night, House Speaker Joseph Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan) announced that Maratita\u2019s bill is numbered HB 18-183 and referred it to the Ways and Means Committee for review.<\/p>\n<p>Maratita\u2019s bill is co-authored by Reps. Ralph Yumul (Ind-Saipan), Trenton Conner (Ind-Tinian), and Ray Tebuteb (Ind-Saipan), who all voted against Saipan casino legislation.<\/p>\n<p>In her bill, Maratita said that for every $1 revenue that gambling generates, taxpayers must pay at least $3 in increased criminal justice costs, social welfare expenses, high regulatory costs, and increased infrastructure expenditures.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe purpose of this act\u2026is to repeal Public Law 18-38 in its entirety, and to leave the decision whether to legalize casinos on Saipan to the people of Saipan,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rep. Janet Maratita (Ind-Saipan) prefiled yesterday a bill repealing in its entirety the now 6-day-old&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[67],"class_list":["post-30903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30903","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\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30903\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}