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DELEGATE SCANLAN: Mr. Chairman, fellow

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Delegates, it always grieves me to take a position contrary

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to my distinguished colleague from Baltimore County with

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whom I have had the pleasure of service on the Constitutional

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Convention Commission before which Commission he advanced

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the idea now reflected in Amendment 2.

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I always feel that the positions I should take

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so I could agree with him were the positions I would take

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many years ago in my political science courses in Columbia,

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where I gave the answers that agree with the position taken

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by Delegate Boyer today and my professors approved.

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It is not always the conservatives who don't

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always learn by the lesson of experience. I think sometimes

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the liberals and idealists don't. The ideal of initiative

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is a hangover from the great days of George L. Morris and

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the liberalism of that day, but the experience of the years

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has shown that the initiative can be subject to the gravest

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abuse, and the most recent manifestation of that was in

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California on the open housing referendum there.

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Today only 13 states retain it, and even most of

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them require that when enough signatures are gathered the