THANKFULLY last week Sen. Respicio spared us all the drama and dismissed the ethics complaint against Sen. Frank Blas. July 2 was the filing deadline and this complaint was over two weeks past that point. The July 2 rule prevents persons from making frivolous ethics complaints in the election cycle. If there is a legitimate ethics concern after July 2, then the media can handle it as a matter coincident to the election.

Since the primary race is pretty boring right now, let’s go to some points on this “ethics” complaint. In a normal election, it is Democrats and Republicans. We don’t really have heavy competition outside of these two parties because the parties let pretty much anyone run who wants to make the effort. If the parties were stricter in the primary process, a third party might emerge. It is rare for an Independent candidate to run in Guam elections because running with a party is so easy.

In early July, the Legislature and the governor realized the law needed to be changed to allow the Independent candidate to be included. Sen. Rodriguez sponsored Bill 488 and the matter was quickly supported by all of the senators present, and signed into law. It is unusual to have a bill passed so quickly and signed into law, but everyone involved wanted to be fair. Great, game on. About a week later the Independent candidate filed an ethics complaint making all sorts of silly allegations about Sen. Frank Blas participating in the process.

Let’s start off with a few legislative realities. The Guam Legislature is a separate branch of government and the only laws that serve as boundaries to their actions are the U.S. Constitution and the Guam Organic Act. All of the Guam laws made by previous legislatures related to limiting the powers or rights of the legislature don’t apply when any given eight senators gather together and decide to pass bills for consideration. One legislature cannot bind the actions of a future legislature. A group of eight senators can pretty much do anything they want to get the business of legislation done. Along these same lines, legislative ethics is not the same as normal social ethics. The complaint against Sen. Blas made outrageous political claims that he had committed an act of moral turpitude which is defined as, " [an] act of baseness, vileness or depravity in the private and social duties which a man owes to his fellowmen, or to society in general, contrary to the accepted and customary rule of right and duty between man and man." This ethics complaint was nonsense, political drivel. It is unfortunate our community doesn’t have a Judge Wapner to deal with cases like this. It was unfair to Sen. Blas. In effect, this was not an ethics complaint, this was a form of political communication. By the way, this same candidate said some lowbrow things about Congresswoman Bordallo in 2008 when he ran as a Democrat. By the way, the fourth candidate in this race, Karlo Dizon, has acted very respectfully and appropriately in this race.

On a final note, the primary has four separate voting universes. Everyone can vote in the nonpartisan race for public auditor. Then each voter can decide to vote Democrat, or Republican or Independent. Given the low energy of this primary, it would be quite possible for the independent candidate to get the required 10 percent to proceed to the general election. There really are not a lot of choice points that would draw a heavy democrat or republican emphasis outside of the delegate race. It is good to vote in any election.