After the vetoing of Bill 173-36, Senator Moylan has continued to express his concern about the unlevel playing field for candidates running under an independent party.
PNC’s Althea Engman has more…
Rather than canceling primary elections, bill 255-36 helps and encourages the independent parties to run and with bill 256-36, which works hand in hand with bill 255-36, but a separate idea.
Moylan said he introduced the bills after Bill 173-36 was vetoed. One of the goals of Bill 173-36 was to cancel primary elections if an equal or fewer than the number of partisan, non-partisan, or independent candidates run and advance to the general election.
As an Independent, the current statutes require extra layers of voting requirements for an independent candidate to advance to the General Election.
They are at a greater disadvantage because unlike candidates who run under a party, they only need to get a minimum of 10% of votes cast to get into the general election and if you don’t make it, which most people who run under an independent party don’t, then you are at a loss.
The parties assist their candidates in getting that 10% unlike people in independent parties who aren’t under a certain umbrella.
Therefore, it is of great importance that Guam’s statutes be amended so that certain requirements of votes obtained be mirrored regardless of whether one runs as a Republican, Democrat, Independent, or even a newly formed Political Party.
Senator Moylan wants to even out the playing field and that is the purpose for this bill.
According to Senator Moylan, we shouldn’t base it on the parties affiliation to the candidate but based it off on the individual and how they feel they can help the people of Guam.
If this bill gets passed into law this Act shall be effective on January 1, 2023.
