Senate President Edith Deleon Guerrero speaks during a session on Tuesday. Also in photo is Senate clerk Doris Bermudes.
ATTORNEY General Edward Manibusan is urging the House Committee on Natural Resources to consider his concerns when deliberating on Senate Legislative Initiative 23-1, which aims to “further protect the interest” of persons of Northern Marianas Descent or NMD.
Authored by Senate President Edith Deleon Guerrero, S.L.I 23-1 was passed by the Senate on June 23, 2023 and is now with the House Committee on Natural Resources. It proposes to amend Section 6 (d), Article XI of the CNMI Constitution to require that the accrued interest on the investment of public land proceeds be “reserved for the benefit” of NMDs.
A legislative initiative must be passed by three-fourths of the members of each house present and voting. It may not be vetoed by the governor, but it must be approved by voters.
In his letter to the House committee chairman, Rep. Angelo Camacho, the AG raised the following concerns:
1) The legislative initiative would deprive the CNMI government’s general fund of a significant amount of annual revenue.
2) It would open Article XI of the CNMI Constitution to challenge on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Manibusan noted that the CNMI government hasn’t fully paid the $15 million it borrowed from the Marianas Public Land Trust to pay vendors for the Super Typhoon Yutu recovery efforts in 2018.
MPLT is responsible for prudently investing the revenue received from the Department of Public Lands for public land leases.
Manibusan said the government still owes MPLT more than $10 million.
If the legislative initiative is ratified, he added, the Legislature would have to find other funding sources to satisfy the loan.
“I urge your committee to consider [the] fact that removing this significant stream of revenue will create an immediate and significant financial burden on the Commonwealth,” Manibusan said.
Moreover, he said, it would open the CNMI to lawsuits pertaining to long-standing equal protection jurisprudence.
Assuming that the lawsuits challenging the language that limits the benefits to NMDs are successful, “the expense of the benefits envisioned would increase dramatically, as the benefits would become available to all residents. Any attempt to favor ‘persons of Northern Marianas Descent’…would be met with further lawsuits,” the AG said.
Manibusan said although the legislative initiative has a laudable goal to secure funding for public benefits, it seeks to only benefit a distinct racial group.
“I recommend that the committee deliberate on [S.L.I. 23-1] considering my comment herein,” he said.
