|
and also the General Assembly will be
forced to comply with this provision, if it
is accepted.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Barrick,
any further questions?
DELEGATE BARRICK: No, I do not
agree with his answer, but I have no other
questions.
THE CHAIRMAN: Are there any fur-
ther questions of the sponsor of the amend-
ment?
Delegate Wheatley.
DELEGATE WHEATLEY: Yes, sir.
THE CHAIRMAN: There is only one
and a half minutes left of time, sir, so
make your question brief.
DELEGATE WHEATLEY: Mr. Chair-
man, I have a point of parliamentary in-
quiry.
THE CHAIRMAN: State the inquiry.
DELEGATE WHEATLEY: Would a
question of the Chairman of the Commit-
tee be in order at this time?
THE CHAIRMAN: It would not.
Are there any other questions to the
sponsor of the amendment?
(There was no response.)
Delegate Winslow, do you have a ques-
tion?
DELEGATE WINSLOW: No.
THE CHAIRMAN: If there are no fur-
ther questions the Chair recognizes Dele-
gate Gallagher.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Mr. Chair-
man, ladies and gentlemen, I think the
colloquy between Delegate —
THE CHAIRMAN: Let me interrupt
you a moment, Delegate Gallagher.
Delegate Wagandt, the reason the Chair-
man did not recognize Delegate Winslow
is that under the rule, you cannot allocate
any part of your time, since this is not
controlled time.
The Chair will recognize Delegate Wins-
low in a few moments.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: I believe
that if one thought of the colloquy between
Delegate Wagandt and Delegate Weide-
meyer, you could see you could get into a
numbers game over what the maximum per-
centage deviation ought to be. I remember
|
going through that once before in connec-
tion with another matter here.
I agree with the objective of Delegate
Wagandt. I do think we want as properly
reflected representation as possible. One
man ought to equal one vote. But we are
in a state of somewhat uncertainty at the
present time as to what the Supreme Court
is going to do.
We know that it is going to affect Mary-
land. I think it would be far better to adopt
a flexible and yet somewhat generally fair
approach to the subject matter by using
the language of the Committee. I am afraid
that if we do go to a percentage, and we
have to hold to it in all cases, that it will
produce situations which people will re-
gret, even those who have served in this
Convention.
I think it is far better at this time to go
with the language of the Committee, "sub-
stantially equal," rather than to go to a
particular number, and I would urge you
to follow the recommendation of our Com-
mittee, which did exactly as you have done
here.
We went from one side to another. Our
final agreement was a compromise. We
think 15 percent is a good figure but we
would sooner have it reflect the general
intention of the Committee, with a varia-
tion for those cases where there would be
hardship. Consequently I would ask you
therefore to vote against the amendment,
recognizing as I do its objective to attain
fairness, nevertheless.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Winslow.
DELEGATE WINSLOW: Mr. Chair-
man, my remarks will be very brief.
In connection with what Chairman Gal-
lagher has just said, that we are uncertain
about the position of the Supreme Court,
this is one of the very reasons that I sup-
port the amendment.
Why should we play around with a half
dozen different plans until we finally hit
upon one which is acceptable for the
country. What we will be doing is very
much in the spirit of what Delegate Weide-
meyer and Delegate Wagandt just com-
mented on, playing the numbers game.
We prevented playing the numbers game
in this provision by setting the number. In
the report, in the memorandum from the
Committee, there is a statement, on page
three, beginning with line 30, as to what
they mean by substantially equal. The dif-
ference between the populations of the
|
