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THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Cardin.
DELEGATE CARDIN: Could something
of this nature be solved if that should oc-
cur, subsequently by the General Assembly?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Mudd.
DELEGATE MUDD: I have just been
advised by my constitutional lawyers that
it could not be.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any delegate
desire to speak in favor?
Does any delegate desire to speak in op-
position? Delegate Bamberger.
DELEGATE BAMBERGER: Mr. Chair-
man, ladies and gentlemen of the Conven-
tion, it is hard to speak against this amend-
ment but I am afraid that you are in the
hands of the lawyers, and worse than that,
you are in the hands of the tax lawyers,
and we are going to dot i's we have al-
ready dotted and cross t's we have already
crossed.
I suggest to Chairman Mudd that the
answer to Delegiate Cardin's question lies
in the next section, 5.14; if what we are
concerned about is that a commission sends
to the governor the minimum number, three
names, and it turns out that they looked
in the wrong telephone book and put on
there somebody who did not reside in a
proper county, or that one of the members
of that commission died, then the list which
they sent would not be a list of a minimum
of three as is required by section 5.14. It
does not take a statute and it does not take
Amendment No. 27 to empower the com-
mission to perform its duty under 5.14,
which is to supply to the governor the list
of a minimum of three, at least alive, and
fairly literate people for appointment to
the bench.
As I say, I think it is hard to speak
against the amendment, but if we are going
to spend our time here trying to guard
against every possible contingency, guard
against not just possibilities but even
against probabilities, we are going to be
here a long time, and we are going to pro-
duce a constitution which will be longer
than the one we have now.
I suggest that we vote against the amend-
ment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any other dele-
gate desire to speak in favor of the amend-
ment? The Chair recognizes Delegate Scan-
lan to speak in opposition.
DELEGATE SCANLAN: I am sorry,
I am somewhat embarrassed. Delegate
Bambenrpr has stolen my speech.
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THE CHAIRMAN: Does any other dele-
gate desire to speak? Delegate Schneider?
DELEGATE SCHNEIDER: Mr. Chair-
man, I do not think there is any real prob-
lem here for the reasons which were pointed
out earlier; that we have a question of
what is sufficiency and who is to deter-
mine sufficiency and also because the list
is supposed to be made up of the people
most qualified and eligible to be a judge,
so if there are only one or two left after
somebody on the list dies, these men are
supposed to be the most eligible and the
most capable and the most desirable candi-
dates for judge in the area, and it would,
therefore, seem that adding someone who
would be less capable and less desirable to
the list would be undesirable. I would urge
the defeat of this motion.
THE CHAIRMAN: Is there any further
discussion? Delegate Chabot?
DELEGATE CHABOT: Just before
supper this Convention voted overwhelm-
ingly to determine that under each and
every circumstance in the matter of the
size of the bar or whatever else, you must
have at least three names on the list.
Now, the Convention is about to deter-
mine that there are many circumstances
under which it is all right to have fewer
than three names on the list.
I will bow to the will of the Convention,
but I think it is being rather ridiculous.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Mitchell.
DELEGATE MITCHELL: I simply
want to add that Delegate Bamberger is
proposing the very argument which is an
argument against what Chairman Mudd
has said is highly improbable, but possible,
that should a governor not exercise his
obligation to appoint one of the nominees
to the vacancy that power has been dele-
gated to the judicial branch. We continue
to feel that that is a violation of the doc-
trine of separation of powers, and it is in
that spirit of certainly not violating the
doctrine of separation of powers, but sub-
stituting language which would compel the
governor to act, that this amendment by
Delegate Chabot has been presented. I
would add that this is preferable to having
a chief judge of the Court of Appeals ap-
pointed from the list.
THE CHAIRMAN: Is there any further
discussion? The pages have, I understand,
already distributed the reprinted amend-
ment. Will you please destroy the other?
Does everybody have the reprint?
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