House Speaker Benigno Fitial said the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Resources\u2019 approval of the CNMI delegate bill is \u201cvery good news\u201d and a significant development for the future of the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m happy upon hearing that it passed the committee,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
If passed by the entire chamber, he said the delegate bill would save the CNMI a lot of public funds allotted for the Washington Representative Office in Washington D.C. and the District Office in the CNMI.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will get rid of the costs that government pays for the D.C. office and the district office operations. Everything will be paid for by the federal government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The U.S. House Committee, chaired by California Republican Rep. Richard W. Pombo, approved the delegate bill on Sept. 29. <\/p>\n
In a letter to Gov. Juan N. Babauta, Washington Rep. Pete A. Tenorio said that various House members supported the measure, H.R. 5135.<\/p>\n
Tenorio said he felt nervous when long-time CNMI critic, California Democrat Rep. George Miller stood up and spoke on the bill.<\/p>\n
He said the congressman reiterated his call for U.S. control of the CNMI\u2019s immigration, among others things, \u201cbut to my shock and great surprise, he supports our quest for delegate.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe spoke very highly of your administration\u2019s reform efforts and is hopeful that you will continue,\u201d Tenorio told Babauta.<\/p>\n
The CNMI House of Representatives had earlier come up with a resolution asking the U.S. Congress to grant the CNMI nonvoting delegate status. The lower chamber noted that the CNMI remains to be the only insular area that lacks representation in Congress. <\/p>\n
Miller, meantime, said that the improvements in the CNMI resulting from the leadership of Gov. Juan N. Babauta and litigation \u201cmerit recognition.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat improvement merits recognition and, in my view, representation in this House,\u201d said Miller. \u201cI would hope that the representative chosen by the CNMI voters will join in supporting legislation to improve labor conditions in the Commonwealth and in ensuring that the forces of reform are successful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tenorio said the bill would be up for a vote before the entire House prior to the scheduled recess next Friday, Oct.8. If not, it would have to wait for the \u201clame duck session\u201d scheduled for late November through January 2005. <\/p>\n
The bill was finally introduced in the House of Representatives on Sept. 23.<\/p>\n
If enacted into law, H.R. 5135 would provide for the first election of a CNMI Delegate in the federal general election in 2006.<\/p>\n
The bill was introduced the committee chairman himself and ranking member Nick J. Rahall (D-WV). <\/p>\n
Pombo led a congressional delegation visit to the CNMI in January and an oversight hearing held in February this year that examined the potential for a Delegate in Congress for the CNMI. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
House Speaker Benigno Fitial said the U.S House of Representatives Committee on Resources\u2019 approval of the CNMI delegate bill is \u201cvery good news\u201d and a significant development for the future of the Commonwealth.<\/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-84504","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\/84504","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=84504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}