Senate votes 6-2 to disapprove governor's order moving casino oversight to Lottery Commission

The Senate on July 11 adopted Senate Resolution 24-06 to disapprove Executive Order 2025-002, a governorissued order that attempted to transfer supervisory authority over casino gaming from the Commonwealth Casino Commission (CCC) to the Commonwealth Lottery Commission. The motion passed by voice/roll-call vote with six senators in favor and two opposed.

The resolution and the committee report that led to it focused on legal and policy problems with the executive order. The gaming committeechair, Senator Magoffna, told the full Senate the order "not only transfers the duties and responsibilities of the casino commission to the lottery commission, but it terminated for cause the existing casino commission commissioners and replace[d] them with the lottery commission commissioners who do not qualify as commissioners under 4 CMC section 23-13." The committee said the EO conflicts with statutory language that bars CCC commissioners from being government employees and that it removes island representation for Rota and Tinian built into Public Law 18-56.

Several senators raised policy questions during the committee-of-the-whole discussion and in floor debate. Concerns included: - Whether the lottery commission, whose members are cabinet officials, would have time or statutory authority to carry out CCCregulatory functions; - Whether the EO provided for transfer of confidential investigative records, personnel, bank accounts, or other operational data from the CCC to the Lottery Commission; - Potential conflicts of interest, chiefly because the attorney generaloffice both represents the CCC in litigation and is listed as a lottery commissioner under existing statute; and - The potential loss of statutory protections intended to preserve representation and revenue earmarked for specific senatorial districts and retirees.

Supporters of the EO argued it was a pragmatic response to the current absence of active casino operations and to long-running problems tied to the CCCand stressed the need for "sound fiscal prudence and accountability." Opponents said the order exceeded the governor's authority by altering statutory duties and creating de facto removals of commissioners without evidence of misconduct. Multiple senators urged a legislative solution as the proper way to make structural changes.

After debate, the Senate adopted Resolution 24-06, which formally disapproves Executive Order 2025-002 and directs that the concerns raised in the gaming committee report be addressed through legislation or stakeholder negotiations rather than by unilateral executive reorganization.

Votes at a glance: the motion to adopt Resolution 24-06 carried on final roll call with 6 votes in favor and 2 opposed; the Senate clerk announced the final result as "6 members voting yes, 2 members voting no." The record as to individual roll-call entries in the transcript does not include a complete, unambiguous list of each senatorby name for the final tally, so the article reports the certified tally rather than attributing named votes where the transcript record was unclear.

Whathappens next: the gaming committee report and the text of Resolution 24-06 were placed in the Senate record, and multiple senators invited the executive branch and affected stakeholders to the legislature for negotiated statutory amendments rather than implementing change by executive order.

Ending: The Senate action preserves the current statutory structure pending legislative action or a mutually negotiated plan among the executive branch, the CCC, the Lottery Commission and other stakeholders.