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Proceedings and Debates of the 1967 Constitutional Convention
Volume 104, Volume 1, Debates 1030   View pdf image (33K)
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1030 CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF MARYLAND [Nov. 20]

the particular judges to whom they al-
legedly "contribute."

In Baltimore City there is one particular
evil that I will point out to you, and that
is that you can buy nomination in the Re-
publican primaries any day of the week,
and that is exactly what happens wherever
you have a weak two-party system. It is
very easy to take a dollar bill and get
yourself a nitch in the general election, and
the Baltimore City lawyers who are here,
know this.

THE CHAIRMAN: For what purpose
does Delegate Malkus rise?

DELEGATE MALKUS: Will the dele-
gate yield for a question?

THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gallagher,
will you yield?

DELEGATE GALLAGHER: I will be
delighted to yield to Delegate Malkus if
we can split — half of it on my time, and
half on his.

THE CHAIRMAN: You have only five
seconds.

DELEGATE GALLAGHER: The ques-
tion is on my time, and the answer on his.

THE CHAIRMAN: We will have to save
it.

Delegate Johnson.

DELEGATE JOHNSON: I would like
to reserve five minutes to close when we
reach the final nine minutes.

THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Mudd.

DELEGATE MUDD: I would like to
yield two minutes to Delegate Marion.

DELEGATE MARION: Mr. Chairman,
if Delegate Blair had told you all the re-
sults of the poll in Missouri of which he
spoke, he would have told you also that
the great majority of lawyers in the State
of Missouri endorse the plan that we pro-
posed for Maryland, and many more en-
dorse it now than endorsed it in 1940. He
would have told you that the percentage
of lawyers who endorsed it in The City of
St. Louis and in the county in which Kansas
City is located endorsed it overwhelmingly,
because those are the areas at the trial
court level where the plan has been in op-
eration for twenty-seven years in the State
of Missouri.

And Delegate Dorsey was correct in tell-
ing you that the members of the General
Assembly of Maryland failed to enact an

amendment which would have provided ju-
dicial reform for the State of Maryland.
Let us look back and see what happened
in the State of Missouri some twenty-seven
years ago. The State Bar Association there
in 1939 recommended this plan to the Mis-
souri legislature. Not a single opposing
witness showed up and appeared before the
legislature, but the legislature failed to
enact a proposed constitutional amendment.
The citizens of Missouri became aroused
and they provided by collection far more
than the necessary signatures required,
enough signatures to put on referendum by
the process of constitutional initiative the
plan which became known as the Missouri
plan. It went on the ballot in 1940 and was
approved by the citizens by over 8,000
votes. The legislature was furious. They
adopted a constitutional amendment which
went on the ballot two years later, which
in the past would have had the effect of
repealing the prior constitutional amend-
ment.

May I ask for another minute, Your
Honor?

THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Mudd will
have to grant it to you.

Delegate Mudd grants you another min-
ute.

DELEGATE MARION: So by act of

the legislature the Missouri Plan went be-
fore the voters in 1942 and in that year
the people of Missouri doubled the margin
of victory and rejected the amendment pro-
posed at that time which would have re-
pealed the amendment that they had en-
acted in 1940.

Then three years after that the State of
Missouri adopted a new constitution. At
that time they wrote into the constitution
the Missouri plan, which had been in effect
since 1940; and witnesses before our Com-
mittee have told us that that judicial re-
form in Missouri contained in their new
constitution was one of the significant fac-
tors in leading to the passage of that new
constitution in Missouri in 1945.

That is the record. It ought to be per-
suasive to Maryland in 1967.

THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Mudd.

DELEGATE MUDD: I would like to
yield two minutes to Delegate Cicone.

DELEGATE CICONE: Mr. Chairman
and ladies and gentlemen: I believe the mi-
nority report is very inconsistent. Why
would they approve a plan that would be

 

 

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Proceedings and Debates of the 1967 Constitutional Convention
Volume 104, Volume 1, Debates 1030   View pdf image (33K)
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