SENATOR Edith Deleon Guerrero will introduce Senate Joint Resolution 22-15 to honor attorney Howard Penney Willens who played an important role in the establishment of the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands.
Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois on May 27, 1931, Willens has an undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Michigan, and a law degree from Yale Law School.
He served as assistant counsel to the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy and was the executive director of the President’s Commission on Crime in Washington, D.C. from 1965 to 1966.
Willens was legal counsel to the Marianas Political Status Commission from December 1972 to March 1976 in the negotiations with the federal government that resulted in the Covenant to establish the CNMI in political union with the U.S.
Willens was also the lead counsel of the First NMI Constitutional Convention in 1976 and the Third Constitutional Convention in 1995.
He served as legal advisor to Gov. Benigno R. Fitial from 2006 to 2010.
With his wife, attorney Deanne C. Siemer, he wrote “An Honorable Accord: The Covenant Between the Northern Mariana Islands and the United States,” and conducted research that served the CNMI well by visiting the U.S. presidential libraries of Presidents Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George Bush and Bill Clinton to collect non-classified presidential records pertaining to the Northern Marianas.
Howard Willens
