In a letter, the group urged lawmakers to support the lawsuit filed by the Fitial administration challenging certain provisions of the federalization law, or U.S. P.L. 110-229
The governor has said that the lawsuit will cost $400,000.
Rose T. Ada-Hocog, the group’s secretary, said federalization “would simply suffocate any dedicated efforts to reviving the local economy.”
Her group cited “the assessment made by the [U.S. Government Accountability Office] report…that the local economy would be reduced by as much as 50 percent when the labor provision [of the federalization law], a highly destructive provision, goes into effect.”
According to the GAO, however, “there is no substantiated data available to validate the foreseen significant negative consequences of the federalization law on the islands’ labor market, tourism and foreign investment.”
The local group stated that the revenue loss of $80 million “means joblessness by the hundreds of capable local workers who would be displaced by this reduction, excluding those recently rendered jobless by the closure of the second largest apparel company [early this month].”
The group said the notion that the federal lawsuit is a “fight” is “wrong.”
“It is a normal method or exercise by which we seek clarification on whether the newly approved federal laws are in violation of the rights of indigenous governance to greater degree of self-government,” the group stated.
Even more important, it added, “is the ability to retain and improve upon our unique relationship with the federal government.”
The federalization law was approved without a CNMI representative in the U.S. Congress and this “makes it all the more important that the [commonwealth] stands for its rights,” the group stated.
It added, “If we allow this without a challenge, then it means joblessness for hundreds, if not thousands of indigenous people…. Please help us retain what is ours by rights as guaranteed to the commonwealth under the Covenant.”
The group believes that the lawsuit “is an opportunity to rebuild a stable local economy now in total disarray.”
