Plenty holidays
ELEVEN days before Christmas, the governor asked the House and the Senate to adopt a joint resolution “that would allow the Department of Finance to provide $500 bonuses to CNMI retirees.” On Dec. 15th, the Senate unanimously adopted S.J.R. 22-5 which was then transmitted to the House. But the House, which held a session on Dec. 20th, did not act on the joint resolution. Instead, some of its members — primarily those supporting other candidates for governor — expressed “concerns” about the funding source and whether the resolution could originate from the Senate. They said they wanted more information from the administration. There was no “holiday bonus” for the retirees before Christmas. Or even before or immediately after New Year’s Day. Not even on MLK Day, another CNMI holiday. Perhaps on or before Presidents Day (Feb. 21st)?
Definitely before Election Day (Nov. 8th).
Their way or the highway
EVERYONE on Capital Hill is for spending $1.3 million for the retirees. No one is against it. Everyone says they appreciate the retirees, and that they are grateful to the retirees. Everyone says the retirees should get their bonuses.
Over a month since the governor’s announcement, the retirees haven’t received their bonuses.
The administration, which has its own legal advisers, said it consulted with the NMI Settlement Fund trustee (a lawyer) and the AG (“the Chief Legal Officer of the Commonwealth government,” says the CNMI Constitution). For her part, the CNMI Senate’s legal counsel said the resolution was not an appropriation measure, and it was properly introduced and adopted by the senators.
As for the Finance secretary, he said the bonuses would be funded by his department and the governor’s office, but legislative approval was needed to reprogram the needed amount. Hence the joint resolution.
But no, said the House leadership. There’s a “right way” to do it, and it involves approving their bill which would allow the governor to reprogram funds from the budget items he had previously vetoed. In other words, the House leaders want to re-argue a political dispute that they can’t “win” — there are still not enough votes in the Senate to override all of the governor’s line-item vetoes.
In any case, it would seem that the fastest way to give the retirees their bonuses is for the House to verify the explanation provided by the secretary of Finance, adopt the joint resolution, and make sure that the governor doesn’t get all the “credit.”
But maybe the real problem for the House is that the funding source is the governor’s office and one of his executive departments — and he’s seeking re-election (even though they’ve already impeached him).
Some of the House leaders have earlier lamented the governor’s “wasteful” spending habits. They said the public funds he had “squandered” could have been spent on “critical” agencies, programs or items. But these apparently do not include the retirees’ bonuses.
True story
JOSEPH Epstein, a former editor of The American Scholar, once wrote that his father, “like many Jews…was an ardent supporter of Franklin Roosevelt. So much so that in the 1930s he wouldn’t allow the then-isolationist Chicago Tribune in the house. My father’s dislike of the paper was so fierce that once, when he had a flat tire in a snowstorm and the driver of a Tribune delivery truck pulled over to help, my father told him to bu**er off. ‘That,’ he used to say when telling the story, ‘shows you how stupid politics can make you.’ ”
