“[Open Government Act] Section 9918 (a) specifically says you don’t give up stuff that the other side didn’t get in the court,” Baka told reporters yesterday. “Do we give all of the information to the feds or not? Fortunately, we have a very wise Legislature in the past who said NO, we don’t give away our secrets to the feds.”
“If they know how much money we have and what percentage we use then the feds could bring a flurry of motions. They could have hundreds of attorneys and they could run us out of court,” he added.
The administration, however, earlier said it would need $50,000 a month to pay its lawyers in Washington, D.C.
Gov. Benigno R. Fitial reiterated that he’s pushing for the lawsuit for the common good of the people of the Northern Marianas because its tourism-based economy is anchored on foreign labor.
“This lawsuit is only asking the court to clarify the authority of the federal government to impose their own labor law into the federalization law,” the governor said.
The lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Labor was filed on Sept. 12 in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia to challenge the labor provisions of the CNMI federalization law which will be implemented on June 1, 2009.
“I strongly believe that labor is a local government issue and I strongly believe that our Covenant authorized the federal government to extend or apply the federal immigration law to the CNMI. So I don’t have any qualms over immigration,” said the governor.
“For somebody to be questioning my duty to the people and to uphold the public interest or the public trust, I think whoever that person is, is missing the point. My public trust is to the people who elected me to this office and that public trust is to defend the rights of the people pursuant to the Covenant. My public trust is not to defend and protect the federal government because I was not elected by the federal government,” he added.
Rep. Tina Sablan, Ind.-Saipan, earlier said that Fitial’s refusal to disclose information regarding the public funds spent on the lawsuit “is one more abuse of the public trust.”
Sablan requested documents relevant to the governor’s contract with the Washington-based law firm Jenner & Block regarding the lawsuit filed in the nation’s capital.
Baka told Sablan that certain information, particularly those concerning litigation, cannot be publicly disclosed as well as those covered by attorney-client privilege.
Baka did acknowledge that certain public funds had been tapped to pay Jenner & Block.
He said if the administration discloses how much money it has, the federal government will have an unfair advantage to win the case not based on merits but on tactics.
“The feds have deeper pockets than we — if they want to take advantage of us, they could bury us with motions and this and that,” said Baka.
“And if they know that we’ve used 80 percent of our budget they can nail us right away and then we’re going to lose and it’s not based on merits. We just want a fair day in court,” he added.
But Sablan said in at least seven cases, U.S. courts allowed the public disclosure of information concerning attorney’s fees and payment records as these are not “covered by the attorney-client privilege.”
According to Baka, “Those seven legal cases were concerning attorney-client privilege, which are not relevant in this case, except in the minds of the Marianas Variety.”
