“All they do is complain,” their critics say. “Lawmakers should make laws. What laws have they authored and passed?”
Senator Frica can remind them that she sponsored major legislation to reform the government’s ailing retirement system, but I don’t think she introduced the bills that seem to be all the rage among voters: spending measures for basketball courts, baseball fields, bus shelters, youth centers, etc.
Tina, for her part, finds it more important to ensure that legislation is thoroughly reviewed and the public consulted before lawmakers can vote on it. Senator Frica agrees. In fact, during her term in office, which, sadly, ends in Jan. 2010, the senator discovered that the CNMI has a lot of laws that are not even enforced.
“There is a strong set of laws already codified in the commonwealth,” she earlier told NMC students. “An effective legislator [should] spend a lot of time reviewing legislation authored by others, listening to the issue and examining the already existing law as well as the history that created and amended it into its present form. Often, [however,] the new bill affecting current law is a knee-jerk reaction to the way in which the current law is affecting a single constituent or a single event. Legislation such as this seldom deserves support. Legislation such as this is more common than I would like.”
Like Tina, the senator doesn’t believe that a lawmaker’s effectiveness is measured by the quantity of bills she sponsored. “The number of bills authored and/or the number of these bills that becomes law has nothing to do with the effectiveness of a legislator,” Senator Frica said. “Tracking the voting record of a legislator and getting their justification for their votes is an accurate way to measure effectiveness.”
Not surprisingly, Senator Frica’s work on the budget — the single most important bill before lawmakers — is nothing less than a legislative masterpiece. She actually reviewed each boring funding item, double-checked with the agencies, discovered appalling omissions, made the necessary corrections and realized that a lot of the government’s financial records are “cut and paste” documents that have nothing to do with the CNMI’s current financial reality. Of the 29 incumbent lawmakers, moreover, the CNMI’s first female senator is the only one who can lock horns, so to speak, with the Retirement Fund and its consultants, managers and legal counsels. Like Tina, she does her homework. She knows what she’s talking about.
It is lawmakers like Frica and Tina who are minding the store while everyone else plays Santa Claus, distributing taxpayer candy and other goodies that may no longer exist.
Ultimately, it is the work of these two lawmakers that will make the government more efficient, less wasteful, more accountable and more responsible to the people. And it is this kind of government that will ensure that the CNMI has good public schools, provides adequate healthcare, creates jobs and produces the revenues that can pay for the construction of more basketball courts, baseball fields, bus shelters, youth centers, etc.
The problem, however, is that, generally, the people expect their lawmakers to be their gofers. This is the only reason why legislators who continue to introduce the sloppiest of legislation are re-elected by the same voters who complain about their Legislature. They want their lawmakers to pave their roads, buy their hot lunches, build pala-palas, call CUC when there’s no power or water in their area, provide them with picnic tables and canopies…the list goes on. Once in session, the same lawmakers will act on measures that they are reading for the first time. After asking perfunctory questions — without the benefit of research and public hearings — they will pass the bills, confirm nominees, adopt resolutions that commend their constituencies, go on recess and head to Shirley’s or J’s.
You should see the faces they make every time this upstart lawmaker, Tina Sablan, asks silly questions like “Is there funding for this?” “What did the implementing agency say?” “Why is there no public hearing?” “How do we know the nominee is qualified?”
And what is the usual question asked by some of her constituents?
“Do you have picnic tables?”
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