ment. The inescapable truth is that we either comply with that
mandate or face the far more distasteful alternative of having the
courts apportion our legislature for us. And let us make no mistake
about this — the courts will perform this task unless you do so your-
selves. The Supreme Court has clearly indicated this in the case of
Maryland Fair Representation Committee versus Governor J. Millard
Tawes. And so, time and energy need not be wasted in debating the
desirability of reapportionment. Some may regret the court's decision,
but we nevertheless must accede to the mandate, which has become
the law of the land.

The situation was summed up precisely by Attorney General
Thomas B. Finan in an opinion he gave the Legislative Council
last May. "We do not have to decide whether or not to reapportion
the General Assembly of Maryland, " he said. "That decision has
already been made for us by the Supreme Court of the United States.
The Legislature of Maryland is faced with but one basic question —
whether reapportionment will be effected by the Legislature, or
whether reapportionment will be effected by the courts. " No one who
has followed the reapportionment struggle in our sister states can
doubt the accuracy of the Attorney General's comments. Some thirty-
nine of the states of our union were affected by the Supreme Court's
reapportionment decisions of 1964. In many states, including our
neighboring States Delaware, Virginia and West Virginia, reapportion-
ment already has been accomplished. In others, the struggle continues,
as it does today in Maryland.

In the State of Oklahoma, the Legislature was unable to agree on a
plan of reapportionment, and so the court stepped in an reappor-
tioned by judicial decree, with a scheme that cut across city and
county lines, dividing the state into areas of equal population but
also separating areas and interests which more properly should have
been bound together. Within the past thirty days, the Supreme Court
of California has announced its intentions of reapportioning the
General Assembly of that State. The court has published a reappor-
tionment plan, giving notice to the Legislature that die plan will
be put into effect by judicial decree unless constitutional reapportion-
ment is accomplished by December 19 of this year. I am sure that
none of us wants this to happen in Maryland. Obviously it is far
better that you devise some reasonable and acceptable plan of re-
apportionment rather than allow the courts to thrust upon us a
scheme with no merit other than mathematical precision. And yet,
unless you perform the task you leave the courts no alternative but
to devise a plan to comply with the Supreme Court's Mandate.

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