By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

FORMER Congressman Robert Underwood says his decision to elevate the election case to the U.S. Supreme Court is driven by his desire to seek clarification of the law rather than by political ambition.
“The basic issue is still the clarification of the law. Given the nature of Guam elections, this situation is going to arise again and it’s critical that we resolve it now once and for all,” said Underwood, who ran with former Sen. Frank B. Aguon Jr. in the Nov. 7 gubernatorial race, in which they lost to Republican Gov. Felix P. Camacho and Lt. Gov. Mike Cruz.
The law offices of Mair Mair Spade and Thompson, which represents the Republican team, expressed disappointment at the Underwood-Aguon team’s decision to further appeal the election case to the nation’s highest court.
“Instead of accepting the will of the voters and the judgment of Guam’s highest court, they now appear to be more than willing to prolong their dispute by engaging in a lengthy and costly appeals process,” a press statement from the Republican legal team said.
“The Camacho-Cruz 2006 legal team is prepared to vigorously defend the Guam Supreme Court’s decision and we are confident that the nation’s highest court will leave that decision in place,” added the legal team led by David Mair and Todd Thompson.
Underwood, however, maintained that a federal law is at stake in the case and that doubts about its interpretation must be cleared by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Organic Act requires that a candidate for governor must meet the 50-percent-plus-1 threshold to win the seat. The question of the definition of “majority” was triggered by differing opinions as to what factors should be included in the calculation of 50-percent-plus-1.
The Guam Supreme Court resolved the case by upholding the Guam Election Commission’s exclusion of 504 “overvotes” which the Democratic team insists should have been counted.
“This case involves a federal law, the Organic Act of Guam, and only the U.S. Supreme Court can make the ultimate decision,” Underwood said. “The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on undervotes, but not on overvotes.”
Underwood said his legal team, whom he declined to identify, will file the appeal within 10 days.
“Frank and I held this decision for several weeks because we wanted to make sure that we were on a legally firm ground,” the former congressman said.
“Obviously, there’s no guarantee,” he said when asked how confident he is that the nation’s high court will take the case.
While saying he couldn’t predict the outcome of his appeal, Underwood said the people of Guam would ultimately benefit from the process.
“If the U.S. Supreme Court takes the case and even if it rules against (our appeal), the people of Guam would still win because then, the issue would be very clear and it will lift the burden on us,” he said.
Underwood is also proposing the creation of a commission to look into the flaws of the Guam election system, and recommend corrective measures to reform the process.
“There were a number of irregularities that occurred in the 2006 election,” Underwood said.
He mentioned, for example, the lack of campaign spending control and absence of a monitoring process for anonymous negative political advertisements.
“Those things cry out for reform because they compromise the people’s confidence in our electoral process,” Underwood said.
“There’s no perfect system of democracy. You need to pay attention to it. You need to cultivate it and build confidence in it. Laws that need to be altered must be altered,” Underwood said, adding that laws cannot be interpreted capriciously.