MANY had noticed that Gov. Arnold I. Palacios and Lt. Gov. David M. Apatang were no longer attending public events together.
Asked whether there was a falling out between them, the governor on Tuesday told reporters, “Let me set the record straight — we are grown men. We will have disagreements. Sometimes when you do not agree today, you just walk away from each other…I’ll go to my office, and he’ll go to his office, and we will cool down, and figure it out.”
Palacios said he and Apatang will always have differences of opinion “on a lot of things.”
“Sometimes I’ll ask him to consider this, and he’ll ask to consider that…then I might say, ‘I don’t think so…we should look at this…,” and there’s going to be differences. Is it going to be hunky-dory every day? Absolutely not,” the governor said.
Asked what they disagree about, Palacios said, “A lot of things. How we are going to approach…how fast we [will] move people into vacant positions. Sometimes I just hold the reins…. Obviously there’s a lot of pressure…from supporters out there…[but] we can’t kick people out just because they are Republicans especially if they are in civil service positions…. Sometimes that’s a slow walk that we have to deal with.”
In 2022, then-Lt. Gov. Palacios and then-Saipan Mayor Apatang left the Republican Party to run on an Independent slate.
They and most of the legislative candidates on their ticket won handily.
Gov. Arnold I. Palacios and Lt. Gov. David M. Apatang
