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Proceedings and Debates of the 1967 Constitutional Convention
Volume 104, Volume 1, Debates 1125   View pdf image (33K)
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[Nov. 21] DEBATES 1125

many trial judges I encountered. He picked
a bad example, I suppose Judge Chester
would not have been designated to serve
had not the Court designated him.

I think it is a matter that could be con-
trolled by the Court of Appeals; if a man
had obviously declined in intellectual
powers he would not be asked to serve
temporarily. If he still possessed them, it
would be ridiculous in the public interest
to deny his abilities not only to the public,
to the people at the appellate level, but
even trial court.

Even to this day, U. S. Judge Reed sits
in the Court of Appeals and has anyone
ever appeared before him and felt that he
had no right to sit there or that he did not
know what was going on? He is in his
eighties but equal to any judge or young
lawyer in this nation.

DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding):
The proponents still have some time. Would
anyone like to speak in favor of the amend-
ment?

(Call for the question.)

DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding):
The question arises on the question of
Amendment No. 46 to Committee Recom-
mendation JB-1.

A vote Aye is a vote in favor of Amend-
ment No. 46. A vote No is a vote against.
The Clerk will call the roll.

Has everybody voted? Does anyone want
to change his vote?

(There was no response.)
If not, the Clerk will record the roll.

There being 22 votes in the affirmative
and 94 in the negative, the motion is lost.
The amendment is rejected.

Are there any other amendments to sec-
tion 5.22? The Chair hears none. Are there
any amendments to Section 5.23? The Chair
hears none. Section 5.24?

Delegate Johnson, do you still propose
to offer your amendment?

DELEGATE JOHNSON: Yes, we do,
Mr. Chairman.

(President H. Vernon Eney resumed the
Chair.)

THE CHAIRMAN: The page will dis-
tribute the amendment. This will be
Amendment No. 47. The Clerk will read
the amendment.

READING CLERK: Amendment No. 47
to Committee Recommendation JB-1, by
Delegates Johnson, Harkness, Hickman,
Kahl, Murphy, Siewierski, Rush: on page
7 in section 5.24 Restriction of non-judicial
activities in line? 33 and 34 strike out the
words: "or make any contribution to".

THE CHAIRMAN: Is there a second?

The amendment having been seconded,
the Chair recognizes Delegate Johnson to
speak to the amendment.

DELEGATE JOHNSON: Mr. Chairman
and fellow delegates: The reason the mi-
nority prepared and urges adoption of this
amendment is because frankly we ques-
tioned the wisdom of having a section with
respect to the restriction of the nonjudi-
cial activities of the judge and no section
with respect to the restriction of the
judicial activities of a judge.

We tried our best to go along with the
majority report which is practically the
same as the draft of the Constitutional Con-
vention Commission with respect to our
amendment, but very frankly, we just
could not find any reason whatsoever to
prevent a judge from making a contribu-
tion to the political party of his choice.

We do not believe that when a judge is

sent to the bench that he give up his right
to vote or his right to back the party of
his choice so that we would urge that the
phrase "or make any contribution" be
deleted.

Now, please bear in mind that the ma-
jority's recommendation does not prevent
the judge from making a contribution to a
candidate of his choice. We do not argue
that, but we think it is foolish to provide
in the constitution that a judge cannot
make a contribution to the Democratic or
Republican party if he chooses to do so.

We are not concerned about what con-
tribution a judge makes after he becomes
a judge, and therefore we urge adoption of
this amendment.

THE CHAIRMAN: The Chair recog-
nizes Delegate Mudd for five minutes.

DELEGATE MUDD: This is controlled
time, Mr. Chairman. May I yield two min-
utes to Delegate Hargrove.

DELEGATE HARGROVE: Mr. Chair-
man, this Convention has put together a
judicial article which purpose is to keep
the judges out of politics. If this amend-
ment is adopted, then I would suggest that
we would be doing just the opposite of
what we have done for the past two days.

 

 

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Proceedings and Debates of the 1967 Constitutional Convention
Volume 104, Volume 1, Debates 1125   View pdf image (33K)
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