Guam News - Guam News

Guam - A Guam resident may soon be proposing a new initiative that would reduce the number of senators at the Guam Legislature from the current 15 down to just 7.

Guam Election Commission Executive Director Maria Pangelinan tells PNC that Ryan Calvo stopped by the office on February 1st to pick up copies of similar initiatives that were proposed in the past. Pangelinan notes that since Calvo picked up the documents, he has not yet returned to submit any proposals.

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Pangelinan also emphasizes that an initiative reform law was just passed last December calling for more transparency. She explains what some of those provisions are.

"First off they must have village meetings and they must have at least 10 village meetings and 2 of them have to be in the most populated villages. They also have to prepare a fiscal impact statement. The fiscal impact statement says, 'how will we be impacted the first year its effective and four years after that," says Pangelinan.

Pangelinan explains the law also requires proponents of any new initiative to foot the bill for mailing out fiscal impact statements to every registered voter.

"What happens is this fiscal impact statement must be mailed out together with the ballot initiative pamphlet. But a little bit different is that the cost of handling, the Guam Election Commission of handling this fiscal impact statement must be reimbursed by the proponent," Pangelinan notes.

Calls and emails to Ryan Calvo were not returned as of this posting.

 

 

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