by Clynt Ridgell, KUAM News Monday, January 07, 2008 Subscribe to Clynt's newsfeed   E-mail this article Printable version KUAM Toolbar Web Widgets Get RSS headlines

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While this past Saturday's election of B.J. Cruz to the legislature gave the Democrats the majority in the 29th, it didn't give them the leadership in Session Hall. Today the party met during caucus to discuss their next move. After winning back the majority the Democrats met and are now asking that the Republicans renounce their control of the legislative branch of the Government of Guam.

Majority Leader Judi Won Pat (D) says that despite the standing rules, which would require twelve votes to change the leadership, the eight sitting democrats (including senator-elect Cruz) feel that relinquishing the legislature's leadership would be the honorable thing to do. "There has been other cases that has demonstrated that they have taken the honorable thing and the most respectful thing to pass over the gavel, not only in the national congress, where the Senate did just that, but even recently here on Guam in the 21st Guam Legislature," she told KUAM News.

Senator Won Pat recalls that during the 21st a similar special election was held when Democrat speaker Joe T. San Agustin promised to give up his speakership if the GOP took the majority. "If we had a democrat who was willing to do that and basically kind of set the pace for it, I just think that would be the most honorable things well to be done in this kind of situation," continued the veteran policymaker.

As for Cruz himself, he says that he was both shocked and humbled to win in such a convincing fashion. One of the first things on his list as a senator would be to override Governor Felix Camacho's veto of the Guam First Commission, one that would deal with Guam's military buildup. Should such an override fail, he says he would like to get on board the Civilian/Military Task Force's education and health subcommittee.

But before any of that happens he too hopes that the democrats can take the leadership of the current lawmaking body. "I'm hoping," Cruz speculated, "that the local Republicans understand that there is precedence set nationally and as Senator Won Pat mentioned there was precedence locally with a mid-term change and they should honor the fact that almost 69% or 70% of the people had no problems giving the leadership of the legislature to the Democrats."

Although Vice-Speaker Eddie Calvo (R) congratulates Cruz on his victory, he may not be ready to hand over the Republican leadership so easily. Instead, Calvo says that he would like to continue the bi-partisan progress that he says this 29th Guam Legislature has made, pointing to the fact that many Democrat-introduced bills have already been passed and four committees have democrat vice-chairs. "We've got to ensure there's stability and a continuity of this legislatures doing the people's work, and we've got to take into consideration that those major changes may have an impact on the productivity and moving forward doing the people's work must remind you that we're only a few weeks away from the budget process, as well," he said.

Senator Won Pat says that if they choose to keep the leadership the Democrats probably won't take the Republicans to court, considering the standing rules. However, she strongly indicated they may instead attempt to sway some members of the GOP in order to garner the 10 votes necessary to change the standing rules.