10,880

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length. I might say we had great pressure on us from the

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state civil defense organization to pass a very lenghthy

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kind of emergency constitutional provision, but we felt that

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we wanted to reduce it to a skeleton form, to merely

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provide that the General Assembly could pass legislation

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in these two areas anticipating a disaster, and at the

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same time in so doing set aside or allow the possibility

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to set aside some constitutional procedures.

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If we didn't include this in the constitution

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then the General Assembly could do nothing to anticipate

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an emergency except as would be allowed by the constitution.

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If this would be the case, the General Assembly might find

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that it could not adequately handle an anticipated disaster.

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Consequently, we feel the language is necessary.

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I might say the Committee went back and forth

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three or four times before it ultimately decided to do it.

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This language in 3.19 is the best coming together of

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language we could arrive at after studying the Rhode Island

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and New York constitutions in both of these regards.

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We felt that this was the best method of approaching the

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problem.