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ond the motion made by Delegate Freed-
. lander.
THE CHAIRMAN: It has been moved
and seconded that the Committee of the
Whole rise in a moment of respect to the
late President Kennedy.
All in favor signify by saying Aye. Con-
trary, No. The Ayes have it. It is so
ordered.
(The Committee of the Whole rose and
observed a moment of silence in memory
of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.)
THE CHAIRMAN: The Chair recog-
nizes Delegate Mudd.
DELEGATE MUDD: I yield three min-
utes to Delegate Hodge Smith.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Smith.
DELEGATE J. H. SMITH: Mr. Chair-
man and members of the Committee of the
Whole: As you probably gathered, this was
one of the knottiest problems we wrestled
with in the Committee. There were a num-
ber of conferences and much debate over
this thing.
It even divided the Smith over here in
the last row. The institution of judicial
administration said that one of the essen-
tials of a sound judicial system was ef-
ficient and business-like administration of
the courts.
The commission adopted the provision
that all the clerks and all the courts in the
four tiers should appoint their clerks. This
is business-like administration. There is no
question about that.
I think that each court should appoint
its own clerk, but here we run headlong
into trouble, and probably at the present
clerks of the courts' expense, who theoreti-
cally, under this direction that each court
should appoint its own clerk, would be in
the superior court level of each county —
the clerks as we presently know them.
You have heard about the heterogeneous
duties that the clerks have at this time.
There are some 600 references in the an-
notated notes of Maryland as to clerks of
court that give them duties from marrying
people to issuing passports to even being
an arm of the U. S. Government for some
purposes such as naturalization purposes.
In Montgomery County our clerk em-
ploys some seventy people. He has testified
before our Committee that approximately
eighty percent of his duties do not refer to
the court function and to me and to the
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bare majority of our Committee, it was
just unthinkable that the judges should get
into appointing a man who has an office of
this magnitude.
It just does not make sense. It is not a
judicial function for the court to be ap-
pointing a clerk in the county who does not
spend all his time working for the court.
THE CHAIRMAN: You have one-
quarter minute.
DELEGATE J. H. SMITH: The com-
promise we reached was to leave this up
to the legislature. Perhaps a commission
should be appointed to study the whole
clerk system and come up with the right
answers. We had to leave the flexibility, in
our humble opinion, to allow this to be
worked out both to the satisfaction of the
court and the public.
Let the people decide how this office is
going to be run in the future.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Dulany.
DELEGATE DULANY: Mr. Chairman,
I submit that the judges do not want the
function of handling eighty percent of the
county's business and I believe that is one
reason we have the proposal that he per-
form the judicial functions and none other.
In essence we are saying that the clerk
be appointed to perform the judicial func-
tions. I believe the Majority Report of our
Committee merely avoids the issue by stat-
ing that the court clerk in the superior
court would be selected as provided by the
legislature.
Actually as we know it, the court clerks
would probably be continued. The judge of
the superior court would probably be de-
prived in many cases of the services of his
clerk because he would be involved in these
other duties. The clerk is not a policy-
maker. He should not be out shaking hands
with everyone in the county as the official
greeter.
The clerk should be responsible to the
judges who appoint him. We should have
an appointive clerk appointed by the su-
perior court judges just as we do in the
other courts. It is inconsistent to have all
clerks, even the chief clerk, appointed and
then have the superior court clerks elected.
I would urge that you all vote for the
amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Mudd.
DELEGATE MUDD: Mr. Chairman and
ladies and gentlemen: May I observe that
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