By Gemma Q. Casas
Variety News Staff

THE administration wants to retain its Washington-based lobbyist for the next six months, according to Press Secretary Charles P. Reyes Jr.
The lobbyist will be paid through the budget allocated within the governor’s office, but Reyes declined to say how much, saying details will be available upon the return of Finance Secretary Eloy Inos who is still in Washington, D.C.
Reyes would not confirm House Minority Leader Arnold I. Palacios’s statement that the administration had hired the National Group whose major clients are mostly postsecondary institutions in the United States.
Reyes said a Washington lobbyist should help U.S. lawmakers understand the CNMI government’s opposition to legislation that would extend federal minimum wage and immigration laws to the islands.
“Since we don’t have a nonvoting delegate in the U.S. Congress, we need a lobbyist,” he said.
“I think it’s only a short-term contract, for about six months. It’s not like an open-ended commitment. It’s not on a fixed term,” he added.
He said CNMI Washington Rep. Pete A. Tenorio agrees with the concept of hiring a lobbyist.
“Even the Washington representative, in the past, and I don’t think he has changed his position, has supported the concept of a lobbyist. You can look at his record. He has clearly endorsed the hiring of a lobbyist,” said Reyes.
Variety was told that the National Group was formed in 2002.
Eight of the 14 listed “partners and associates” with the National Group were formerly with Cassidy & Associates, one of Washington, D.C.’s largest and most successful lobbying firms.