Faleomavaega still missing; American Samoa in Legislative Danger

We watched the internet-streamed hearing with bated breath today as House Foreign Affairs Asia Pacific Subcommittee Chairman Steve Chabot (R-OH) announced that a Samoan member of the panel would be Ranking Minority Member.  Only that Member was not 13-term veteran American Samoa Del. Eni Faleomavaega but Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), who has only been in office for 13 months.  We found no small irony in Gabbard quickly taking the seat Faleomavaega waited years to earn.

This was the important overview hearing on U.S. policy towards the Asia-Pacific region that will set the tone for the subcommittee’s deliberations over the balance of this session of Congress.  At the outset, Chabot announced that Faleomavaega was unable to be there so Gabbard would serve as Ranking Member.  Oh, the irony.  It is clear that, given his passion for Asia-Pacific issues and given his status as Ranking Member, few things would have kept him from participating in that hearing.  One of those things would be illness.  Gabbard did a very creditable job and viewers also were spared having to put up with Eni’s typical harangues and whining.

While nothing was directly at stake for American Samoa in today’s hearing, there are other matters afoot in Congress that need the personal attention of the delegate. On January 8 we posted a blog headlined “Faleomavaega Absence Could Destroy American Samoa Private Economy.”    Sadly, it appears our worst fears may be coming true.  Just as he was caught napping when the House included American Samoa in its 2007 bill raising the U.S. minimum wage, Faleomavaega was caught off guard by language which was put into the Consolidated Appropriations Act report that mandates the Secretary of Agriculture to come back to Congress in 60 days with options to end the requirement that tuna sold to the U.S. for school lunches be 100% American caught, processed and canned.

In 2007, Faleomavaega was away from Washington (as he so often is) while his House Democrat colleagues--fresh back in the majority after 12 years in the wilderness--were putting the finishing touches on the bills they planned to offer at the opening bell of the session.  A minimum wage raise, which they promised in the campaign, was at the top of the list.

Eni raced back to Washington to speak against it before final passage but he was too late.  The die already had been cast and he was not around to explain to his colleagues why adding American Samoa would hurt our economy.  Over subsequent years, he has tried to cover himself by blaming Republicans but anyone who knows how Congress works knows that the House Majority can strip out of any bill any language it does not want in there.

This time, the Republicans are in charge and one of them added language to the appropriations bill that would weaken the “Buy American” requirement for tuna in school lunches.  It is impossible to know if Eni could have stopped it but, lying in a bed in Utah attempting to recover from what is thought to be a severe stroke he suffered in October, once again he was not in place to do anything about it. 

When we wrote about this issue, it was part of the Farm Bill that was working its way through the system.  But, given the uncertainty of that bill’s fate at the time, one of the senior members of the Appropriations Committee had the language added to the report of the Appropriations bill, which was on the verge of and ultimately did pass and was signed into law by President Obama.

Now once again American Samoa is behind the eight ball.  Op-ed pieces for Capitol Hill publications have been written in his name and a slew of press releases in his name have been sent out on the issue.  But no one is fooled except maybe the people.  Talanei.com and particularly Samoa News may think they are covering themselves by saying that “according to a statement issued by Faleomavaega’s office,” but then the go on to use quotes that undoubtedly are written by staff to mask the fact that Eni simply is still not in Washington after nearly four months.  Most readers and listeners believe he is hard at work on these issues when he is not. His absence at today’s hearing is proof.

Meanwhile, the Farm Bill now has been passed by both houses and is on its way to the President for signature.  What kind of language is in it on “Buy America?”  Also yesterday it was announced that the full D.C. Circuit Court has agreed to hear the American Samoa citizenship case.  Faleomavaega filed a friend of the court brief before he took ill arguing against imposition of citizenship.   What will happen with him out of commission?  And House Democrats are moving ahead with plans to raise the minimum wage yet again, this time to $10.10/hour.   Senate Democrats have the votes to pass it.  What if House Republicans go along?

Lots of questions but unfortunately, if our local media is seeking answers to them, they are not informing us what they are asking and what responses they are getting.  It is now at the point that Faleomavaega reminds us of the title character in the Terminator movie.  If you remember the end of the movie, the Terminator is taking so much punishment, his outer skin has been all blown away.  Finally, the hero sticks dynamite in his rib cage and blows the Terminator all to bits.  But the hand and the upper torso keep on crawling.

Eni is like that.  Against all odds, he keeps on coming.  Only in his case, it is madness.  What has he got left to prove??

Faleomavaega on Hillary’s Hit List?

It recently has been revealed that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been keeping a score card or “hit list” of those who did or did not endorse her in her first run for the presidency in 2008 against Barack Obama.  Please read this PoliticoMagazine story for greater details about the list.

It is no secret that Faleomavaega was one of Obama’s earliest backers while then Gov. Togiola Tulafono endorsed then-Sen. Clinton.  When she came through here as Secretary a few years ago, we all watched carefully as Faleomavaega used his precious time with her on the ground to plead for debt relief for Cambodia while Togiola asked that American Samoa be allowed to seek official observer status at the Pacific Islands Forum—a dream that had eluded several governors before him but was always denied by State.

It also did not go unnoticed on the island that when Mrs. Clinton returned to Washington, nothing further was done on Cambodian debt relief but she did announce that State would change its long-standing policy and allow its Pacific territories to participate at the Forum as observers.

With the odds high that Mrs. Clinton will be the Democratic Party’s nominee in 30 months time, the local Democratic party would do well to hustle Faleomavaega into retirement as quickly as possible so that American Samoa is not disadvantaged under a Clinton presidency.  It could be a lose/lose situation for us: Hillary wins and we get punished because Eni is on her hit list; Hillary loses and we get punished because Republicans control the White House as well as the House.

Here is why the time right for Faleomavaega to put in his retirement papers:

•  he supported Obama over Hillary in 2008 (and as far as we can tell, has gotten nothing for it) and is probably on her hit list described in the Politico article;  

•  he is suffering severe health problems and is no longer up to the job;  even if he were not ill, he now is over 70 years old and while age and wisdom are valued in our culture, not so in Washington; there are few members of the House over 70;  

•  he no longer has Senator Inouye on whom to rely in a tight legislative spot; had the Senator still been alive and been in charge of appropriations on the Senate side, the reduction of Buy America for tuna never would have been in the final appropriations bill and Eni was not around to try to stop it himself;

• the retirements of allies Reps. George Miller and Henry Waxman take away two people on whom he could rely for help in the House (although it was Miller who sandbagged him and continues to sandbag him on minimum wage);

• even if he were healthy, he served on a committee, Foreign Affairs, of little value to us and we have seen no evidence that his service as the senior Democrat on the Asia-Pacific subcommittee has brought us any benefits; he is in and out of places like Seoul and Bangkok all the time but there is no evidence that StarKist or Chicken of the Sea are influenced by him at all;

• he never will serve in the Majority again--ever;  Democrats already pretty much are conceding control of the House this fall, with even the DNC chairman saying so; the earliest that Democrats might return to power in the House is 2022 after the next redistricting; were he still alive and in office, Eni would be approaching 80;  we need someone new to start building seniority now; if you aren't in the Majority, you are nothing; if you are a non-voting delegate in the Minority, you are less than nothing, particularly if you have a worthless committee assignment;

Over the years, Faleomavaega has been one of those who has taken the time to stake out his ground on the House floor so as to be seen on television.  We watched very carefully this year and while we saw the Guam and Virgin Islands delegates well positioned to greet the President as he strode past them on the way to the dais, Faleomavaega was nowhere to be seen.  Even though his office continues to furiously pump out news releases (including one commenting on Obama’s speech), and our local media continue to use them (especially Samoa News, where his sister-in-law is on the editorial staff) as if he were back in his office, we have no evidence to suggest he is in Washington at all.

We have not yet called for his early retirement but if this Buy America problem does not get resolved, then maybe he needs to reconsider.  It is clear that representing American Samoa by press release and letters issued from bed is not doing the job.  It may be time to go.

Faleomavaega Still Finds Ways to Travel

When the Democrats took over Congress in 2007, it meant at long last Del. Faleomavaega (D-AS) would find himself in the majority with enough seniority to be given a subcommittee to chair.  Not that he lacked the means to travel earlier in his career (how many Members do you think have visited Thursday Island in the Torres Straits once, let alone twice?), but as various waves of reform have swept over Congress in the past quarter century—especially in the wake of the Abramoff scandals, the rules have been drawn tighter and tighter around the travel process.

But giving Eni a gavel meant giving him a budget, and that was like sending a child into a candy store with a couple of bucks to spend.  To make his travel life even sweeter, House Democrats even tacked onto his portfolio “Global Environment,” which gave him license to travel anywhere his heart desired.  So, when there was unrest over land rights in Rapanui, an integral part of Chile, thus not under the jurisdiction of the foreign affairs committee, there was no question in our mind that the roving delegate would find a rationale to make his way there anyway—and he sure did.  One place he did not go, however, was Copenhagen for a U.N. conference on climate change.  Speaker Nancy Pelosi took a planeload of House members but somehow the chairman of the subcommittee overseeing “Global Environment” got left off the manifest.

But we digress.  The National Journal magazine has published an article titled “How Lobbyists Still Fly Through Loopholes” and it should not surprise anyone that our South Pacific flyboy is among the Members of Congress featured.  Says the Journal: "It's widely believed that the 2007 rewrite of congressional travel rules spurred by the scandal that sent lobbyist Jack Abramoff to prison banned such international dalliances. But that's far, far from true. A National Journal investigation has found that despite efforts to clip the wings of congressional travel planned and paid for by special interests, lawmakers are again taking flight. Indeed, the reality is that lobbyists who can't legally buy a lawmaker a sandwich can still escort members on trips all around the world.”

NJ outlines the various ways lobbyists get around the rules and focused on a trip to Taiwan in 2012 as one example.  On their travel reports, two Democrats each listed Fu Jen Catholic University as the sole sponsor of their $27,000 week long journeys.  What's more, the itinerary said that Faleomavaega joined Reps. Boren and Ross for large chunks of the trip. But Fu Jen didn't pay for Faleomavaega's free trip the Taiwanese government arranged it through the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act (MECEA) program.

The 1961 MECEA law allows foreign governments to shuttle members of Congress and their staffs abroad if the State Department has approved the destination nations for "cultural exchange" trips. About 60 countries have such clearances. Despite the 2007 post-Abramoff travel law, lobbyists are still able to plan and attend these MECEA journeys.

“How did trips planned and paid for by a private university so seamlessly mesh with one planned and paid for by the government,” asks the Journal?  “Fu Jen and the Taiwanese government wouldn't say. They declined to answer specific questions.”  

Readers of this blog will remember our April 3, 2012 post which covered a report in the ProPublica investigative news service, which focuses on ethics in government.  They reported that Faleomavaega traveled to Bahrain under MECEA funding at the behest of a friend who was a Bahrain lobbyist.  We speculated that the exposé could hurt him in his bid for the full committee ranking member slot and ultimately he was passed over for the position, even though eventually he did throw his lobbyist friend under the bus to try to save himself by reversing his position on Bahrain.

So it is no surprise that Faleomavaega was able to maintain his brutal travel schedule when he sank back into the minority in 2011 and "Global Environment” was eliminated from the Asia-Pacific subcommittee, to which he returned as (and remains) Ranking Minority Member.  Considering he, himself, spoke of his poor health during his 2012 re-election campaign, almost boastfully acknowledging having had knee, heart and eye surgery, as well as being diabetic, having high blood pressure and other ailments, including being obese, it then came as no surprise either that it was during travel that he suffered what appears to be a stroke in October.  He still has refused to confirm his medical condition but his office has not refuted it was a stroke. 

Ironically, it was on one of his rare trips back to American Samoa that he fell ill and had to be medivaced back to the states.  He can be thankful it did not happen on Thursday Island, Rapanui, Kazakhstan, Mururoa Atoll, the jungles of West Papua or any of the other exotic haunts he frequents.  MECEA or not, the only flying he seems likely to do doing at any time soon will be from Utah to Washington, DC.  Whether lobbyists can come up with a creative way to cart around the world a delegate who now adds stroke to his list of ailments remains to be seen.

Bumble Bee CEO to Faleomavaega: You’re a Liar

In response to a recent op-ed piece in The Hill newspaper, in which the ailing Delegate Eni Faleomavaega argued against reducing the content of U.S.-caught and processed tuna in the federal school lunch program, Bumble Bee chief executive Chris Lischewski has called untrue the Delegate’s assertion that Bumble Bee tuna is processed by child labor in Thailand.

“Not only are these allegations false,” said Lischewski, “they are a cynical attempt, timed to a congressional action, to preserve Dongwon Industries’ monopoly of providing tuna to American schools.” Dongwon is the Korean parent company of StarKist.

The Bumble Bee CEO once was an ally of Faleomavaega, who a few years ago failed to get Congress to adopt his secret amendment to a Maritime bill that would have permitted foreign made ships to be U.S. flagged without offloading tuna at Pago Pago.  Lischewski went on to write in his own post on The Hill blog: “[I]t is absolutely slanderous to suggest that we use facilities that violate child labor standards. How do we know this? All of Bumble Bee’s suppliers must sign a statement saying they don’t use forced, trafficked or underage labor and we conduct regular onsite visits, along with paying for audits.”

Even though the secret amendment became an issue in one of Faleomavaega's election campaigns, he won and vowed he would reintroduce the measure in the next Congress, but never did.  Some time later, he said he had been misled on the issue.

Lischewski goes on to conclude “[Dongwon and Faleomavaega] hope that this will distract people from realizing that the monopoly they enjoy on the Buy American product that they are trying to preserve is entirely based on a foreign company using government exemptions from tariffs, minimum wage laws and other federal regulations enjoyed by the Territory of American Samoa and that the elimination of the monopoly will actually result in lower costs to our government and more healthy tuna on school lunch menus for our kids.”

This is an issue of supreme importance to American Samoa because loss of their monopoly in the American market could force StarKist to close its Pago Pago cannery, as Chicken of the Sea did in 2009, because they operate on thin profit margins.  A StarKist closure would throw thousands of people out of work and destroy the American Samoa economy.

It is fortunate that this issue is being played out in a publication like The Hill, which also is on line, because local coverage has borrowed heavily from a story in the paper as well as the opinion pieces offered by Faleomavaega and Lischewski.

Given Faleomavaega’s current incapacity and extended absence from Washington, it is likely his op-ed essay was largely penned by StarKist lobbyists but it is curious why he has not also kept the American Samoa public informed through the media and his website.  Perhaps Samoa News and Radio 93KHJ-FM have withheld publishing his releases on this issue because he adamantly refuses to discuss his physical condition. 

Even if that were the case, however, he easily could post information on his website, on which he has placed no news releases since an October 8 attack on the local Republican Party and his “In the News” section has no content whatsoever.  One would have thought he easily could have posted a link to his The Hill op-ed if nothing else.  Moreover, his website photograph appears to be at least 20 years out of date and contrasts sharply with the image taken from his Christmas video.  Both photos appear in the right column of this blog.

Several days have passed now since both Samoa News and talanei.com have posted stories questioning his health and either he has not responded or they have chosen not to carry his reaction.  He told the paper he would be returning to Washington “as soon as possible” but no one knows what that means.  How important his physical presence in Washington will be in the StarKist effort to keep their school lunch market is unclear.  Whether he even will return before the vote is taken remains to be seen.

Faleomavaega Video Raises More Questions than Answers

Mark Twain once said “Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.”  Faleomavaega apparently forgot that old adage about avoiding an argument with the press when he issued a news release Monday to accompany a copy of a 30-second video Christmas greeting he provided KVZK-TV during the holidays.  In his statement he blasted Samoa News for not publishing earlier releases reporting on the progress in Congress of several pieces of legislation of importance to the territory.

For its part, Samoa News responded that the paper had covered those issues but did not use his releases because, among other things “there was still no reply from the Congressman’s office on previous Samoa News questions on the status of his health, why was he hospitalized in the first place, and how he is staying in contact with his office if he is in rehab.”  The bylined story goes on to say “[t]hese are the same questions many residents, including voters, are raising with Samoa News and these questions have yet to be answered,” firing back: “Having his office issue a news release quoting the Congressman still does not provide answers to lingering questions on his health.”

At the same time, Radio 93KHJ-FM news director Monica Miller aired the audio of Faleomavaega’s Christmas greeting saying “The 30-second clip shows the congressman from the chest up and he looked like he lost weight.  In his Samoan greeting one can detect a slight slur in Faleomavaega's speech.  The brevity of his greeting is also unusual.“  In her commentary that also ran in talanei.com, Miller also noted that Faleomavaega’s “Washington D.C. office has not answered any questions about the congressman’s health and whether he is in hospital or at home.”

We long have urged both Samoa News and Radio KHJ to withhold disseminating Faleomavaega’s news releases as a means of forcing his office to be forthcoming on his health issue, which is what he clearly has tried to do with the release of his Christmas video.   Originally sent down here to be aired on television, the Delegate apparently was frustrated that it only played once and was seen only by a small number of people, so he decided to send it to Samoa News and KHJ in hopes of getting wider distribution. But sending it with a combative news release, rather than complaining in a private communication with Samoa News, probably did him more harm than good.

Wrote Samoa News reporter Joyetter Feagaimaali’i-Luamanu: “The video, with the message in Samoan, was released by the Congressman’s Washington D.C. office and was received by Samoa News, but didn’t provide any other details such as where the video was recorded and when; and did not address the health condition of the Congressman.”  She went on to disclose that “Samoa News has sent questions to [his chief of staff] Faiivae, with a copy of the email questions to the Washington D.C. office for more details but as of yesterday [Tuesday] afternoon, there has been no reply.  Faleomavaega made no mention of his health on the 30-second video,” which the paper posted at its website.

Because Faleomavaega has received such uncritical attention by the local media over his long career and has a reputation for being vindictive, we have suspected that if the media were not participating in a cover up of his health condition they were being intimidated into silence.  This is clearly not the case, as we now realize the News and the radio station were withholding dissemination of most of his releases, just not telling their readers and listeners.   We were misled by looking for his news releases on his website, on which he has not published any since early October nor is any information available in the "In the News" section.  It also appears that he only sporadically posts on his Facebook page and does not tweet from his Twitter account at all.

Obviously his releases were being targeted just to the local media directly and we now understand that rather than participating in a conspiracy of silence, they were giving him every courtesy due him as a measure of respect for his position as is customary in our Samoan culture.

But it looks as if his response has backfired and an irritated media looks to be ready now to start to hold his feet to the fire publicly.  Indeed, there already have been comments on-line to the effect that while people respect Faleomavaega for his years of service, he has disrespected the people by the way he has handled questions over his health.

In recent days there has been a spate of announcements of senior Members of Congress retiring, including Rep. George Miller (D-CA), who, like Faleomavaega, is a protégé of the late U.S. Rep. Phil Burton (D-CA).  Burton in the 1970s rammed through the House legislation creating congressional seats for Guam, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa (the last seat in a bill drafted by his young staffer--Eni Hunkin).  Miller, as chairman of the House committee with jurisdiction over wages, is the person most responsible for making the most recent minimum wage hike applicable to American Samoa the first time. The wage hike led to the closure of one of the two tuna canneries, throwing thousands of people out of work.

Faleomavaega, of course, can stay in office as long as the voters keep electing him.  Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) was elected to a new term after suffering a serious stroke that left him permanently impaired and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) remains in office while continuing to rehabilitate.  Nevertheless, it is difficult to comprehend why he would want to keep going.   He reminds us of the character in the Terminator movie that just keeps going despite being shot up, blown to pieces and even thrown into a vat of molten metal.

This is obviously a good time for Faleomavaega to call it a day.  He is 70 years old and has had a long enough government career, including his years as a Capitol Hill staff member and military service, to have a very handsome pension.  His congressional health plan, which is the best in the country, would go with him into retirement and he has gone as far as he can on the House leadership ladder: in the last two years he was passed over by a freshman Chinese-American for the chairmanship of the Congressional Asia Pacific Caucus despite having served loyally for seven years as vice chairman and was passed over for the senior position on House full Committee on Foreign Affairs despite having highest seniority in his party on the committee. 

Moreover, it is unlikely Democrats will regain control of the House this fall and most independent analysts believe Republicans will be able to maintain their majority until the next redistricting and reapportionment after the 2020 elections.  At that time a chronically ill (by his own admission) Faleomavaega would be approaching age 80.  All the while, American Samoa is losing the opportunity to let someone else build up seniority in the House and will end up even worse off than Hawaii, where every member of the delegation is new following the retirement last year of long-serving Sen. Dan Akaka (D) and the death of the Senate's most senior member: Sen. Dan Inouye (D).  Too, when legislators like Johnson and Kirk are incapacitated, there are others in their delegations to pick up the slack.  Faleomavaega is all we have in Congress and he does not enjoy long-standing friendships the way he did with Akaka, Inouye and the soon departing Miller to help advance his issues.

Finally, it is unlikely his doctors will permit him to resume his passion for extensive foreign travel and, since he has no real legislative record, it is difficult to understand why he would want to hang on.  Had he been honest with the people from the beginning, there no doubt would have been an outpouring of sympathy for him.  But by choosing to deceive everyone on the state of his health, he has lost credibility with the media and increasingly the respect of the voters.

Aside from demonstrating he is not comatose or near death, the only question Faleomavaega’s video has answered is that he is well enough to direct his staff, meaning we now know they have not been freelancing.  The tactics are his, not theirs.

More Local Media Fraud on Faleomavaega?

We thought the media had turned the corner on the issue of how to handle the disappearance of Faleomavaega, who has been missing in action since being medivaced off the island since last October.  But apparently not.

Even though talanei.com earlier last week boldly ran a story questioning the health status of the Delegate, they came right back on Friday to run a press release quoting Faleomavaega from a statement he entered into the Congressional Record on the passing of Guamanian former Delegate Ben Blaz.

Does talanei.com know that Eni actually made those remarks or was it staff?  Did the staff write and submit them on their own or by direction.  Any of those methods are quite acceptable, but talanei.com provided no qualifier, leaving readers with the impression that Faleomavaega strolled over to the Floor of the House, delivered a tribute to Blaz and had his remarks entered into the Record. What is not acceptable is to continue to participate in a coverup and using this press release in this fashion amounts to just that.

Meanwhile, after promising follow up stories, Samoa News, where Eni’s sister-in-law, the Democratic National Committeewoman, is on the editorial staff, has had nothing further to say about the Delegate.   Curiously, they have not covered last week’s press conference of congressional candidate Tua’au Kereti Mata’utia, who did raise questions about Faleomavaega saying nothing of his health, but at the same time they also did not carry the press release on Ben Blaz.

Since Mata’utia is a member of the Governor’s immediate staff, is the only announced candidate for Congress and is a Democrat, it does look suspicious that the leading newspaper would not cover his press conference and once again it must be asked if Eni’s sister-in-law’s presence on the newspaper staff plays any role in the paper’s decision on what is newsworthy?

We also thought both media organizations would follow up on the story broken Friday by Saipan and Guam Washington correspondent Matt Kaye, who revealed that Eni is playing no role in moving the Omnibus Territories Bill though Congress.  Again, not a word by talanei.com or Samoa News, despite the fact that this story has major ramifications for the territory. 

To talanei.com we again say, do not use Faleomavaega press releases unless you can verify their veracity and if they are legitimate remarks uttered by the Delegate, tell your readers and your Radio 93KHJ-FM listeners.

To Samoa News we say, if you did not use the Blaz press release because you could not attest to its veracity, we applaud you but then tell your readers that.  Faleomavaega’s staff will have no reason to be forthcoming with the public unless and until they are compelled by the local media to do so.

Neither Samoa News nor talanei.com may care what this blog thinks, but sooner or later they will begin to hear from legitimate off-island media such as Associated Press, Radio Australia and Radio New Zealand, all of whom employ as occasional correspondents staff members on Samoa News and talanei.com.  Once those media organizations’ credibility is compromised beyond repair,  expect RA, RNZI and AP to begin to look elsewhere for reliable news sources.  

Washington Correspondent Breaks Faleomavaega Illness Story

Matt Kaye, the veteran Washington correspondent for radio and TV stations on Guam and Saipan, appears to be the first newsperson in Washington, D.C. to address the question of Eni Faleomavaega’s prolonged absence from the Nation’s Capital.   Kaye is a correspondent for the Berns Bureau, which covers federal news for radio stations across the country.

In a story filed Friday with Guam’s Pacific News Center concerning the future of the Omnibus Territories Bill moving through Congress, Kaye said “Reliable sources here [in Washington] say [Faleomavaega] needs ‘major rehabilitation.’ Local media [in American Samoa] speculate he may have suffered a stroke, and Faleomavaega’s office has not refuted that.”  Kaye apparently was no more successful than our local media in getting any information or comment out of the Delegate’s office.

As part of his story, Kaye interviewed Northern Mariana Islands Congressional Delegate Gregorio C. Sablan (I), who said “I continue to keep Congressman Faleomavaega, Eni and his family, in my prayers. We would, of course, let his office know that we’re having a meeting [about the Omnibus Bill] and invite someone from his office to join us in the meeting.”  If anyone were to attend, it most likely would be Lisa Williams, the widely reviled chief of staff who runs the office with an iron fist and brooks no interference.

Curiously, back here in American Samoa, the media have fallen strangely silent again about Faleomavaega, although Samoa News had said they would be covering the story in the next several issues after revealing that Faleomavaega was not personally involved in another issue moving through Congress: efforts to reduce the U.S. content requirement for tuna sold for use in the U.S. school lunch program.  A reduction from the current 100% could tip the balance against the tuna industry from remaining on island and is clearly a major story for the territory.

On Wednesday, the only announced candidate for Faleomavaega’s seat, Tua’au Kereti Mata’utia, held a press conference to discuss his reasons for running for Congress, which is subject to election in November.  He told Radio 93KHJ-FM that he believed “public officials owe it to their constituents to share what they can about their health so voters are not wondering what’s wrong with their leaders.”  KHJ noted that Faleomavaega “has been ill since October of last year but there has been little information from his office about his prognosis.”

Mata’utia, a Democrat, remains on the immediate staff of Governor Lolo Moliga, also a Democrat, is assistant senior policy adviser, so his pronouncements will be seen by many as reflecting the thinking of his boss, the Governor.  For example, he is not opposed to the attempt by Congressional Democrats again to raise the federal minimum wage although he would apply it to American Samoa carefully. Although Mata'utia is an announced candidate, the media has not reported whether he has given any indication of when he plans to step down from government as required by local law and a search of Federal Election Commission records does not list him as having registered his campaign yet.

Whether they missed it or sent a reporter and did not find a story worth reporting, for some reason Samoa News has carried no story about Mata’utia’s press conference, just as the paper has had nothing further to say about Faleomavaega’s prolonged absence from Congress.   One would have thought his pronouncement about minimum wage alone would have been enough for coverage, given his position as a policy adviser on the Governor’s staff, but apparently not.   It is not known whether the presence of Faleomavaega’s sister-in-law on the Samoa News editorial staff has any bearing on how the paper will cover his opponents during this unusual situation but in light of the mystery surrounding Faleomavaega’s health, people are asking that question, especially since she also is a voting member of the Democratic National Committee.

The Fono formally opens its first regular session of 2014 on Monday and the Governor will deliver his annual State of the Territory address.  Faleomavaega is always invited to attend the formal opening and also has formally addressed the Fono in the past.  If he is absent on Monday, it will be further evidence that he remains incapacitated.  Sources continue to say he is in Utah but it remains unclear if he is at his residence or in some hospital or other facility.  It also remains unclear if he may soon be undergoing surgery for some undisclosed medical condition. 

We will state again for the record that we believe Faleomavaega has suffered a debilitating stroke from which he may not recover enough to continue to serve in Congress.  There are no laws or rules that would prevent him from serving out his term or even being reelected, no matter what his condition.  Although no one familiar with his situation has confirmed our speculation, it is a fact that his office has made no effort to refute our contention that he has some neurological condition.  At least now that a respected Washington journalist has raised the Faleomavaega question and another Member of Congress has addressed it, perhaps others off-island will begin to demand answers to questions that should have been asked long ago.

All eyes on Monday will be on the Governor and the Fono Leadership to see what any of them have to say about Faleomavaega.  The media also will be in attendance and will have the opportunity to interview political leaders as part of the occasion.  Surely they will ask questions about Faleomavaega.  Or will they?