Paul J. Bordallo v. Carlos G. Camacho

Paul J. Bordallo, then a Senator of Guam, appeals a judgment in favor of Carlos G. Camacho, then the Governor, in litigation brought to test the validity of the Governor’s exercise of the “pocket veto” of a bill duly enacted by the Twelfth Guam Legislature.

The bill was passed July 10, 1973. Six days later, the Legislature, according to the trial court’s recitation of the undisputed facts, “adjourned for a recess” to reconvene on August 27, 1973. During the recess, on July 26, 1973, the bill was delivered to the Governor. The record is provocatively silent on the manner of delivery and the identity of the messenger.

Before departing on its six-week recess, the Legislature failed to designate an officer to receive messages from the Governor; nor did it provide for the receipt, filing, routing, and safekeeping of such messages as might be delivered to the Legislature during a recess.

The controlling statute, 48 U.S.C. § 1423i, reads as follows:

The Governor neither signed the bill nor returned it within the ten days prescribed by law. The tenth day fell, of course, during the recess. The Governor did send a message, and again the record is tantalizingly silent, to someone…