“I was waiting for [Rep.] Tina [Sablan] to introduce the bill because this was supposed to be her issue, but I’m not going to wait anymore,” said Reyes, R-Saipan, in an interview.
Sablan, Ind.-Saipan, is the main proponent of a popular initiative that will end the Legislature’s exemption from the Open Government Act, but it will not be placed on the ballot until Nov. 2009.
Reyes recalled that he and then-Rep. Cinta M. Kaipat, Covenant-Saipan, tried to pass a similar bill, but Sablan thought it was “inadequate.”
“She didn’t like that bill,” Reyes said. “So I asked [the author of the Open Government Act], Sen. Paul [A. Manglona, R-Rota], if I could re-introduce his original bill and he said yes.”
Enacted on Jan. 21, 1994, Public Law 8-41 was amended four months later to exempt the Legislature from the Open Government Act.
“It should not have been amended,” Reyes said. “But even after it was amended, the law still allows the people to request records from their lawmakers. I’m open. I even authorized [the Department of] Finance to give them [citizens requesting for documents] whatever they want. I have nothing to hide. Lawmakers should have nothing to hide. But I agree that the Legislature shouldn’t be exempted [from the Open Government Act]. And I’m reintroducing the original bill because while Tina just talks about it, nothing’s happening.”
Asked for comment, Sablan said, “I was planning to introduce the same in the House. I just might, maybe it will move along faster if it’s in both houses. I think I’ll have to wait to see the bill before I can say anything really meaningful about it. From what I’ve heard, it might propose some additional changes to the [Open Government Act] that will give people up to 30 days to challenge in court the validity of any agency (or legislative) action, on the grounds that OGA rules for public notice and conduct of public meetings were violated. After that period, if there are no challenges, an agency action (or law) would be considered valid at least insofar as the OGA is concerned. But again, I haven’t seen the bill, so I have no idea what it says exactly.”
Sablan at the same time noted that the amendments to the House rules “that I proposed in April continue to languish in the House Rules Committee…. The rules would have required at least three days’ public notice, with agendas, for all sessions and committee meetings, and would have improved access to public records of the Legislature, including office budgets and expenditures.”
She added, “It was after the vice speaker called the proposed amendments ‘controversial,’ after the floor leader said they would be ‘costly,’ after members voted overwhelmingly to refer the proposal to the Rules Committee, and after I observed that the Rules Committee has yet to meet at all, let alone report back to the body, that I decided to go ahead and submit the signatures we had gathered to place the Open Government Act initiative on the ballot.”
Sablan said she is pleased that the Senate president “has taken such a clear position on the Open Government Act question and has come out and publicly stated that it should apply to the Legislature just as it does to all other agencies. If the bill passes in the Senate, I am hopeful that he and the other members of the Senate will assist in the effort to push my colleagues in the House to also embrace full and fair public notice of all meetings and access to the public records of the Legislature.”
She said the Senate “need not wait for the House to act on such a bill. The Senate can amend its own rules immediately to improve transparency in the legislative process in its own chambers, without waiting for the House to pass an Open Government Act bill. I would be more than happy to provide to the Senate the resolution I introduced in the House. Perhaps the members of the House will then see that transparency is neither controversial nor costly and will be more willing to rise to the challenge of amending the House rules accordingly and of passing a bill to apply the Open Government Act to the entire Legislature.”
Senate Bill 16-39, which Reyes will introduce this week, states that “to restore public confidence in its government, the Open Government Act should be made applicable to the Legislature.”
According to the bill, P.L. 8-41 was amended due to “concerns for privacy in matters involving constituent communications with elected officials and the timeliness of legislative action.”
