REPRESENTATIVE Tina Sablan’s critics say all she does is to complain “without offering solutions.” But those who actually listen to her statements or read them carefully will realize that all she talks
about are solutions: stop wasting public funds, don’t hire unnecessary personnel, comply with the Open Government Act, study and review each and every bill and conduct public hearings before acting on legislation and don’t confirm nominees without reviewing their credentials and qualifications. At the height of the power crisis, the Saipan delegation committee that she chairs looked into the history of CUC mismanagement, conducted hearings and met with utility officials. Her diagnosis: CUC cannot function well because politicians run it. Her solution: federal receivership.
True, she is irritating, but only because most of the times she is right. Worse, she walks the talk. She drives a sedan that is only slightly better looking than my clunker. She doesn’t provide constituents with picnic tables and tents. She doesn’t buy their fundraising tickets either. She doesn’t hire staffers. She runs her own office. By her own actions, she has shown how a lawmaker can serve her constituents without catering to their, well, base instincts. In short, she makes most of her colleagues look bad.
She ran as an independent candidate for the Senate and, once again, appealed to the intelligence, not to the pockets, of voters. She had no campaign ads/signs. She didn’t promise jobs. She didn’t “lend” money. She didn’t pay CUC bills. Yet she garnered 2,430 votes in a race dominated by the political parties and their bloc-voting supporters. She won the support of the island’s thinking class and concerned citizens — whose number is bound to grow now that the CNMI will have to endure five more years of a reactionary administration stuck in the past.
Tina has articulated the genuine aspirations of the people, even if most of them didn’t realize it last month. Happily, there will be other elections.
***
Earlier this week, the Variety disclosed that a lawmaker-elect got his job back at the Legislative Bureau as a “legislative assistant.” We were told that the lawmaker-elect had to file a leave of absence when the campaign period started and now that the election season is over, he can resume his LB duties, for which he gets $37,000 a year. This is, we were assured, the way things are.
But that’s exactly the problem. Business as usual on Capital Hill.
Clearly, the LB managed to carry on without one legislative assistant. Considering the government’s financial condition, why does the LB need to rehire him when he will be sworn in as a lawmaker next month?
This sorry episode once again indicates that there a lot of nonessential government jobs, and that they exist only because they are essential to the political survival of those who are in power.
***
What should be a “big deal,” according to administration supporters, is the disclosure that lawmakers are sharing resources, based on finance department records. This supposedly shows that legislators can’t manage public funds.
But these funds are allotted by law to lawmakers. They have been pooling their resources and sharing costs to save money, minimize the use of available equipment and provide services to the community.
One lawmaker told me that that “during my first year of office, I hired one…individual and paid him the minimum wage. After he left, I hired a replacement who was making much, much more than the minimum salary but wanted to work for me. However, I was not able to afford the salary he was making before I hired him. [Another lawmaker] offered to share the personnel costs of this employee…. It is normal for members to share costs. It is allowed in the Constitution for members to pool their resources, and Finance has been approving the transfer without any question.”
The lawmaker added, “So this issue is not a big deal. Just as the governor is allowed to reprogram from one account to another, the members of the Legislature have the authority to pool their resources together to accomplish their work at a minimal cost, whenever possible…. If we do not spend our operational budget it would automatically lose its identity in the general fund and would give the governor more to spend or cover his illegal deficit spending.”
Send feedback
to
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
