Transcript
FERNANDO ESTEVES: It's gotten to a point where there has been a consistent influx of a select few, often times legacy individuals, who come into the legislature and often times they will stay there a very long time. I have always discredited the notion that long time experience as a politician makes for better policy. I think the very idea of the legislature branch of government, a citizen legislature, is that we pull from the concerns, experiences, knowledge and ideas of the whole community. I think once we do that, one, we will have a more active participation from the community in government and also have more ideas come in that we can look at, that we can discuss, we can fine-tune, that would truly benefit the people of the island.
KORO VAKA'UTA: How would having a part-time legislature attract a wider variety of people?
FE: Well often times you see individuals who are professionals in their own right, people who have a great understanding of education, of medical care, of housing who have worked in the prospective fields as well as environmental. It is difficult, it is a tall order to ask that they leave long standing careers and that we discount their consideration for the well-being of their families in order to make that sacrifice and serve in the public eye. So this allows for us to have a wide variety of candidates and leaders who have a lot of different perspectives and ideas to the table. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, the fisherman, the hunter, the teacher, the doctor, which was by design how this branch of government started.
KV: You mention the sacrifice that people have to make enter the legislature, for some people they see that as self-sacrifice and as someone who wants to serve the community wholeheartedly and I guess single-mindedly.
FE: Of course and I understand that but that puts a lot of emphasis on the one person and not the body as a whole. The very idea of the body is that we are multiple voices that make up one voice. We ask them to make that sacrifice and we want the experience and knowledge that they bring. When they vote and when the bring up policy, often times we see that policy as not necessarily being beneficial to the community but more beneficial to the political career. So it's a focus on job security as opposed to objectivity and real community-based focus. Guam actually originally had a part-time legislature and they were called Congressmen at the time and they were made up of multiple individuals of the community, the very forefathers of our government today and a lot of what we have moved on to. Over time it turned into more of a full-time job. Now if we focus on what our actual tasks are, which is creating and passing policy and passing the budget and take away all the other things, I think we would have a more efficient government.
