The petition was signed by more than 3,000 voters, or more than the required number, but it has yet to be certified by the Attorney General’s Office. Aug. 5 was the deadline for the AGO’s certification.
The AGO believes that the initiative cannot be placed on the Nov. 4 ballot because this year’s U.S. congressional delegate election is not a “regular general election” as defined by the CNMI Constitution.
A bill was introduced and passed by the House of Representatives, H.B. 16-112, to establish procedures for the delegate election and allow the petition to be placed on the ballot, but the Senate amended the measure to define this year’s election as a “special election.”
The House has accepted the Senate version of the bill.
Rep. Tina Sablan, Ind.-Saipan and the main proponent of the initiative, said she still disagrees with the Senate amendment.
“But none of that really matters at this point because the election commission held a meeting [on Friday]…deliberated on both sides of the issue…and decided that the initiative should go on the 2009 ballot,” she said.
She added, “One particular challenge that I think was difficult to surmount even if we did firmly establish that this is in fact a regular general election, is the requirement that if the attorney general certifies an initiative within 90 days of a regular general election, that that initiative shall be placed, not at the immediately upcoming election, but at the next regular general election. By now we are quite past the 90-day deadline, so the initiative would more than likely have been placed on the 2009 ballot anyhow.”
Sablan said they can ask the court to review the matter, “but my feeling is that by the time any appeals are heard and decided upon, the Nov. 2008 election would be over and done with, and we might as well focus our energies on 2009. So I think that is what we will do, and in the meantime, between now and 2009, we will continue pushing the issue of improving transparency at the Legislature and educating the community about its importance.”
Senate legal counsel Michael L. Ernest, who was asked by the senators to review H.B. 16-112, stated that the Senate cannot amend the bill “in such a way so that a popular initiative…could be placed before voters” on Nov. 4.
In his three-page legal opinion dated Aug. 11, Ernest cited the “Analysis of the Constitution of the CNMI,” which stated that any election other than the regular general election is a special election.
He said this year’s delegate election, “while a federal general election, is a special election as defined by the CNMI Constitution.”
“[T]here is no action I can recommend which would result in the placement of the popular initiative on the ballot on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008,” Ernest said. “Calling the election a general election does not trump the requirements of the CNMI Constitution.”
According to Ernest, even if his legal analysis is incorrect, “the failure of the petition to be certified properly has decided the issue, for there is nothing the Legislature can do to erase the fact that the petition was not certified in a timely manner….”
He recommends at the same time that “initiatives be introduced to amend the CNMI Constitution…to synchronize our regular general election with the federal election.”
A popular initiative, which is a proposed law, has to be signed by at least 20 percent of qualified CNMI voters and must be certified by the AG at least 90 days before Election Day.
The initiative will become law if approved by two-thirds of the votes cast.
As of early this month, 12,367 voters had already registered for this year’s election.
The election commission will continue to register voters until Sept. 15.
