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Democrat majority possible in a GOP-controlled legislature
d2k8
It will be interesting to see how the chips will fall tonight at the end of the ballot tabulation for the Decision 2008 special election, because if a Democrat does come out victorious at the end of the counting, the Republicans will be in for a serious awakening tomorrow morning. "We've said that it's very important that a democrat win this upcoming special election," commented Senator Rory Respicio (D) on the matter, which has more than just a few in the community intrigued.
Whether its Tom Ada or B.J. Cruz, another Democrat in the 29th will mean control - not necessarily in leadership roles - but definitely as far as having the power to move bills through Session Hall. While one might think that if a party clearly has more members than the other, that party would automatically assume the leadership positions like speaker, vice-speaker and chairmanships of the various committees, but stipulations in the Legislature's standing rules contain certain provisions that must be met in order for those changes to occur when a vacancy arises.
Acting speaker Eddie Calvo (R) said of the possibility, "The standing rules have been in place in fact this is not unique to the 29th Guam Legislature, it has been for several legislatures back both Republican- and Democrat-controlled legislatures. Very clearly the standing rules state that when it comes to leadership when there is any type of change that is moved for there is a requirement for 12 votes for changes of leadership and as well as changes in chairmanships of committees. If there is desire for change in standing rules, there is a necessity for 10 votes."
This would mean that even if the Democrats were to assume the majority, they would have to convince four Republicans to vote to change the leadership in the Legislature. Although that's highly unlikely to occur, Respicio, the acting minority leader, says should a member of his party win, they wouldn't need the titles because the party would be in position to move through the Democrats' agenda.
He said (with notable optimism), "It's very important that a Democrat wins because we'd have eight votes to prevent any initiative that's inconsistent with the democratic principles and philosophies like to help working families get accessible affordable healthcare and other things that are very important tot the democratic principles. We can prevent those things that are inconsistent with those principles from passing the legislature."
Recognizing the possibility of a Democrat majority, the acting speaker is confident the two parties will be able to continue to work together just as they've done through the tumultuous last several months. "The 29th Guam Legislature has been a very interesting legislature because early on we've had an illness and then a death. That's why the reason for this election and in different periods of this 29th Legislature there has been no majority, and in some instances there has been more Democrats than there have been Republicans," Calvo explained. "But I want to congratulate both members of the Democrats and Republican side of this legislature because we've been able to put aside political differences and work toward the betterment of the people."
If at all anything, according to Senator Respicio, whoever wins tonight, the issue will be brought to light: what needs to be done in the future? "What this does it would bring an even bigger issue to the forefront. When the senators went from 21 senators to 15, you had a lot of problems it putting too much power in a few hands, so this may even be an impetus to bring back the initiative to raise the legislature back to 21 so we won't have this kind of situation."
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