He doesn’t have a car and commutes everyday to and from work through Washington, D.C.’s public trains.
He lives in a cramped studio apartment in a Hispanic neighborhood. His neighbors don’t know he’s a member of the U.S. Congress.
He does his own laundry and cooks for himself.
“When I leave the office, I take off my pin,” Sablan said in an interview at his district office in Susupe. “I don’t promote myself as a member of Congress. I don’t tell them I am a member of Congress. Why should I?”
Sablan, a father of six, said he’s not “pretentious.”
“I don’t wine and dine. I go to work at eight in the morning and leave at 10 in the evening,” he added.
He wears a $15 battery-operated Casio wristwatch.
“I don’t pretend I’m someone else. There are people worth millions of hundreds of dollars and they don’t pretend to be who they’re not. [Congressman] Jared Polis is a rising star in Congress and he’s in my class. He’s a multi-millionaire from Colorado and he sleeps in his room,” Sablan said.
The 55-year-old Sablan, or Kilili to his constituents, is among the new members of the U.S. Congress.
He is also the CNMI’s first congressional delegate.
The House has 435 members, including six delegates from the territories and commonwealths like the Northern Marianas.
Many of them are well-educated and scions of powerful families in the United States.
Sablan, on the other hand, had to quit college after his father lost his job.
And he’s probably the only American lawmaker with tattoos on both arms — very visible reminders of his younger days.
Sablan, who is seeking re-election this November, said he sincerely wants to continue serving his people and make their voices heard in the nation’s capital.
In his first term, Sablan successfully secured different grants for the CNMI and worked on legislation that would benefit the islands.
“It’s been very busy,” he said, referring to his first term as a freshman lawmaker.
Sablan is instrumental in convincing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to allow Russian and Chinese tourists to continue visiting the CNMI even without U.S. visas through the agency’s discretionary parole program.
He brought a congressional delegation led by U.S. House Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Nick Rahall to the CNMI so they can see for themselves the conditions here.
Sablan said there’s still so much to do for the CNMI.
“There are still lawmakers who don’t know about us,” he added.
