{"id":409485,"date":"2024-05-09T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-09T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=409485"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Babauta-removed-as-chair-of-JGL-Committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Babauta-removed-as-chair-of-JGL-Committee\/","title":{"rendered":"Babauta removed as chair of JGL Committee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Citing numerous pending bills and not holding a committee meeting for eight months, Senate President Edith E. DeLeon Guerrero (D-Saipan) removed Sen. Celina R. Babauta (D-Saipan) as chairwoman of the Senate Judiciary, Government &amp; Law Committee.<\/p>\n<p>As of press time yesterday, <em>Saipan Tribune<\/em> was waiting for comment from Babauta.<\/p>\n<p>DeLeon Guerrero said in a memorandum issued Tuesday that there are 30 Senate bills and 28 House of Representatives bills pending in the JGL Committee.<\/p>\n<p>The Senate president also noted that JGL Committee\u2019s last meeting was held on Sept. 14, 2023.<\/p>\n<p>DeLeon Guerrero said Babauta is also chairperson of the Senate Committee on Executive Appointments &amp; Government Investigations, which \u201chas been extremely busy with Senate confirmations of executive appointments.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Senate president said accordingly, pursuant to her authority under the Senate Interim Rules, she appoints Sen. Karl R. King-Nabors (R-Tinian) as the new chairperson of the JGL Committee.<\/p>\n<p>King-Nabors will appoint the new members of the JGL Committee pursuant to the Senate Interim Rules and take over the administration of the committee effective that day, Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>In response to <em>Saipan Tribune<\/em>\u2019s request to comment further yesterday, DeLeon Guerrero said every standing committee has an important role and responsibility to include review proposed legislations referred to committee for passage or not.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe required work of the committee must go on with the numerous referred bills that have far exceeded their timelines for committee work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The Senate president said King-Nabors, who is the newly assigned JGL Committee chairman, understands the tasks ahead and the need to commit its members that have yet to be formed of the legislative work before the committee.<\/p>\n<p>Last Jan. 12, Rep. Marissa Renee Flores (Ind-Saipan) questioned why 45 House bills have been sitting in the Senate for almost a year now. DeLeon Guerrero then stated that she is not holding any of Flores\u2019 bills.<\/p>\n<p> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/imgupload\/a677d10e820561fcc62fcf0071b5b71f.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Celina R. Babauta<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Citing numerous pending bills and not holding a committee meeting for eight months, Senate President&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-409485","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\/409485","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=409485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}