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taken most of the day with respect to this
provision, there is one constant "them"
that has been reiterated over and over
again, and it comes from those with the
support of the minority as well as those
with the support of the majority amend-
ments. They are not really happy; they
are not reassured with the majority recom-
mendation. They have not found the sense
yet which would give them the assurance
they need.
We have heard much discussion on this
floor today about the present system of ap-
pointing judges having produced corrup-
tion in the judiciary. We heard reports that
nominations to the Republican party in the
City of Baltimore can be had with a cer-
tain sum of money. I myself have heard
stories about appointments to the bench at
various levels in the State of Maryland
that could have been obtained for a cer-
tain amount of money, but let me make
clear, I know of no corrupt judge person-
ally. I know of no judge who has paid any
money for his appointment. I know further
of no judge who has committed himself to
give a certain line of decisions in behalf
of certain individuals for this political
support.
I do know, as all lawyers know, that
there are some judges who are more inept
than other judges, some judges who do not
have that mysterious quality which we de-
fine as judicial temperament, which in my
mind is just a lot of common sense grafted
on an abundance of scholarship and knowl-
edge of the law.
What is there troublesome about the ma-
jority recommendation in section 5.14?
First of all, it seems to me that it has
not met the test of experience, or of time,
except in one state. I have heard it said
by the minority spokesman that no state in
the union has adopted the majority recom-
mendation in the detail with which it comes
before this body. That statement has not
been challenged by the Chairman of this
Committee; so to my mind as a lawyer,
that is an uncontroverted fact as of this
time.
Secondly, it does not seem to me that the
majority recommendation has met the test
of necessity. No one who has spoken for
the majority has said that we have bad
judges in the State of Maryland. The most
that they have reiterated is that we can
have better judges, with the system that
they propose.
It does seem to me that to fly into the
unknown in the further hope of something
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better by sacrificing something that has
worked is neither in the interest of wis-
dom nor prudence. The next troublesome
aspect of the majority recommendation
5.14 is that it has not met the test of neces-
sity for removing the appointment of
judges from the political process, and this
is where I think we have some real hard
thinking to do.
This proposal of the majority is based
solely on the stark premise that you can-
not trust either the governor or the legis-
lature and there is no other way that you
can look at it.
Mr. President, we might have had in the
State of Maryland in the past period of
thirty to forty years a series of corrupt
governors, but we have not had that. We
might have had for that period of time a
series of corrupt legislators, but we have
not. However, even if we had, the premise
of the majority is one that I can never
agree to, because there is no substitute, re-
gardless of the process of filtering that
you may recommend, for an honest man in
political office who wants to do a public
service for the entire State and the entire
electorate and who has been elected by the
people.
The real issue that is involved in the
Committee's proposal is whether this Con-
vention of delegates is going to remove the
element of responsibility from the process
of selecting their judges.
The more I look at this article, and I
have to say that you cannot look at 5.14
alone — you must look at the entire article,
the more disturbed I get, because with all
charity to the majority of the members of
the Committee, and many of them are my
friends, it appears to me that this article
was written by judges and for judges, and
that it does not properly delegate power
to the people, in the way we did for the
executive and the legislative branches. I
see no case for setting it up this way for
the judiciary.
We do not say that we should devise a
system for the selection of governor to
avoid going outside of the political process.
I am sure we could devise a screening com-
mittee that would come up with a gover-
nor who has more intellect, more prudence,
more of everything else than any process
of political elections, but the fact remains,
will he be a good governor; and we say
the check is in the people, and that is where
it should be. Nor do we say on the other
hand that we should divorce the selection
of our senators or delegates from the po-
litical process.
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