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Turning now to section 3.07 on vacan-
cies, I might point out that the method of
filling vacancies as provided in 3.07 is dif-
ferent from that provided both in the pres-
ent Constitution and in the draft of the
Constitutional Convention Commission.
The Committee sought to eliminate as
far as possible the influence of the gover-
nor over the appointment of those who fill
vacancies in the General Assembly. This
was done after a study was made of the
frequency with which vacancies occurred
in the General Assembly in any four-year
period.
The Committee was quite surprised to
learn, and I think the Committee of the
Whole will, as well, that it is not unusual
in any four-year term to have a 15 to
20 percent turnover or vacancy rate in
the General Assembly. The Committee on
the Legislative Branch felt that if the gov-
ernor were given a non-discretionary power
to fill these vacancies that by the time the
fourth year of any General Assembly
would have met, that there would be within
the General Assembly too large a percent-
age of the membership, both in the House
or the Senate, who would owe their seats
to the governor, and who might possibly be
overly responsive in showing their feelings
of generosity toward him.
Consequently it was decided that the
governor should have no hand whatsoever
in appointing those to fill vacancies in the
General Assembly.
The Committee has provided that the
General Assembly shall prescribe by law
for a certain period of time how the vacan-
cies shall be filled. We do provide, how-
ever, in our language, that when a party
member has vacated a seat that the person
chosen to fill the vacancy shall be of the
same party, so that we tried to follow that
practice insofar as the present procedure
is used.
We contemplate to write in our schedule
of legislation a provision to the effect that
the State Central Committee shall continue
until the General Assembly determines
otherwise to fill these vacancies.
We did not want to memorialize in the
constitution a political party device, that
is to say, a State Central Committee, and
we determined it would be more profitable
simply to allow the General Assembly to
determine how these vacancies shall be
filled.
The Committee, however, was somewhat
determined to see to it that persons ap-
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pointed to the Senate and House should not
have the right to serve for three years and
six months or three years, or two and a
half years, and consequently as you will
note, our Committee Report requires that
anyone appointed to fill a vacancy shall
serve only until the next statewide general
election held more than ninety days after
the vacancy occurs, at which election any
remaining portion of the unexpired term
shall be filled. So the idea would be, there-
fore, that by and large there is always a
general statewide election every two years,
and that when a vacancy occurs in the
House or the Senate, that the appointee
shall serve only in effect the remainder of
a two-year period.
He then, or she then, as the case may
be, may decide to run in the next statewide
election to succeed himself once he has been
appointed, but we have cut down, there-
fore, the length of time under which it is
possible to have an appointee serve in the
General Assembly. This is a major de-
parture from the present practice.
I might say here that the Committee con-
sidered the idea of having special elections
whenever a vacancy occurred, but because
of the expense of such a procedure, we de-
cided it would not be a wise move to make,
and so we decided to use the statewide
election device.
Turning now to section 3.09, appoint-
ment of legislators to other offices, this sec-
tion is not identical, though it is substan-
tially equal to the present section in the
Maryland Constitution.
We now provide that no member of the
General Assembly shall during the term of
office for which he was elected or appointed
be appointed to any office which had been
created or the compensation increased by
the General Assembly during such time,
the idea being here the classic one that the
legislature ought not to be voting for the
creation of office or increase in salary of
offices to which they would succeed upon
promptly resigning from the General As-
sembly.
The differences you have in the draft be-
fore you in 3.09 and the present Consti-
tution is that the present Constitution does
not even allow a member of the General
Assembly to be even elected to an office
which he voted to create or whose salary
he voted to increase.
We deleted the election feature. In other
words, the only limitation now is that you
cannot be appointed to an office which you
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