Gov. Leon Guerrero resents ‘lack of support’ from three Democratic senators
By Frank Whitman
As Gov. Lourdes Leon Guerrero heads into what is to be the last two years of her eight-year stint as Guam’s chief executive, she is faced with the Republican sweep of both the federal and local elections in the November 2024 balloting.
However, Leon Guerrero, a Democrat, anticipates receiving more cooperation from the incoming Republican-majority 38th Guam Legislature than she did from the 37th, despite its Democratic majority.
“I'm hoping that in this legislature there will be some more professionalism, some more respect among the colleagues,” she said. “I hope that they continue on with what they said of debate, fairness, respect and decorum, as the speaker (Frank Blas Jr.) said in his speech when he accepted the chair as speaker.”
She has been communicating with the speaker, vice speaker and fellow Democrats, refuting accusations that her administration lacks transparency.
The most significant point of contention between Leon Guerrero and Guam legislators is the disagreement over the location of a sorely needed public hospital to replace the aging Guam Memorial Hospital. The governor is determined to build a new hospital medical complex in Mangilao, while a number of legislators and others say the 102-acre Mangilao complex is too extravagant. They propose a hospital facility built on 35 acres in Tamuning, close to existing clinics and other health care facilities.
Although Democrats held a 9-6 majority in the 37th Guam Legislature, three Democratic lawmakers consistently opposed the Mangilao site for the new GMH, blocking efforts to fund the project.
The governor was particularly critical of former Speaker Therese Terlaje. “The speaker, in this last term, really wasn't very supportive of our administration,” Leon Guerrero said. “She claims lack of transparency, communication is not available, I'm hiding information. You know, that whole picture of an administration that doesn't want to work with the legislature, which is totally not true.”
Leon Guerrero said that while she has been open with the legislators, her efforts at transparency regarding the hospital as well as the government budget have not been reciprocated.
“Every budget that I put down there, they did not vote for,” she said. “What does that say? Lack of cooperation and lack of support. I've been very, very open and very transparent with the budget.”
She noted that many Democrats have been supportive and that the legislature’s Office of Finance and Budget formerly under Sen. Joseph S. San Agustin, “has worked very closely” with the executive branch’s Bureau of Budget and Management Research. “I don't want to say that our Democratic senators, all of them did not support [it],” she said. “It was Speaker Terlaje, (Sen.) Chris Barnett and (Sen.) Sabina Flores Perez (who did not support.)”
The three Democratic senators are among the most vocal critics of the governor’s policies.
Leon Guerrero, a pro-choice advocate, acknowledged that in light of their new majority, Republicans may seek to ban abortion. “That is always a concern,” she said. “But if they would go back to the history of legal cases, it's been tried, and all the time we have won, keeping it legal in Guam.”
She can't predict if the Republicans want to go through the struggle again. “It's really about the woman's right to choose,” she said. “It's about protecting her own body and protecting her reproductive health, and as you see what's happening in Texas, where women are dying because of a very restrictive ban on abortion. We don't want our island to be that way.”
Other administration initiatives include the multiagency unified law enforcement group, or MAULEG, to address illegal drug activities through the addition of sworn peace officers from other law enforcement agencies to assist the Guam Police Department. Republican Sen. Chris Duenas introduced the bill, which was signed into law on Dec. 23, 2024.
“I think there needs to be some improvement in the piece of legislation to be very clear about how we move forward,” Leon Guerrero said. “But I think that's a great start in reinforcing the work that we are doing to fight crime and to fight drugs coming into our island and to make sure that we have the law enforcement resources to do it, we have the medical health care resources to do it, we have the social services to do it.”
With respect to federal relations, Leon Guerrero is hopeful for a positive working relationship with President Donald Trump’s Republican administration.
She noted that her first term began in 2018, during the last two years of the first Trump administration. “I was able to be in meetings with his cabinet and his administration,” she said. “I brought to President Trump's attention about the earned income tax credit, and how all the states are paid by the federal government and we are not. He did acknowledge that that wasn't fair."
In 2020, however, Trump opposed H.R. 5687, the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Relief and Puerto Rico Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2020, which would provide Guam with 75 percent earned income tax credit reimbursement. The bill, according to the Trump administration, would “push taxpayer dollars out the door.”
Guam eventually received $56.1 million in EITC reimbursement in 2022 under President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
The Guam military buildup is unlikely to be affected by the change in administration, the governor said. “There are a lot of admirals there that I have had good relationships with that aren't going to change out,” Leon Guerrero said. “I'm waiting to see who will be the secretary of defense, the secretary of the navy, secretary of the army, because those are the people that change out.”
She plans to visit the secretaries at the Pentagon as she did during her first term.
“It was Secretary Braithwaite who was the Republican secretary of the navy at the time, who gave me 102 acres of Eagles Field (for the new hospital),” Leon Guerrero said.
“I will be the governor that will go and fight for our island regardless if it's a Republican president or a Democrat president because we need to. Of course, there are differences of principles and differences of philosophy, but I think, as governor, I still need to hold fast to my principles. My responsibility is to be
diplomatic, professional, make our case again, be very clear and continue the message of how we are important out here for the defense of the nation.”
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