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posals deserved, this came to our atten-
tion. We then took the three or four pro-
posals encompassing this field and tried to
blend them together into some harmonious
policy statement that the General Pro-
visions Committee by a majority vote felt
should be in the constitution.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Borom.
DELEGATE BOROM: Then I would be
interested in what testimony the Committee
heard that influenced its decision to bring
this particular section out to the floor, and
the second part of the question is, I would
like to know what the Committee vote was
on this particular section.
DELEGATE BOYER: Answering your
first question, naturally we heard from all
of the individual delegates of this Conven-
tion who had introduced their proposals,
and this was rather voluminous, but we
heard in detail from them. Then we had
before us Assistant Attorney General Nor-
man Polovoy, who, as you know, is in
charge of administering the consumer pro-
tection law that was just passed by the
General Assembly this year, and his testi-
mony provided some very pointed and en-
lightening reasons for his belief that this
should be in the constitution.
In answer to your second question, when
we first considered this, we had the basic
question, should this even be in the con-
stitution, and at that time there were nine
members present and the vote was six to
three that there should be something in the
constitution protecting consumers. Then
after hearing from the different proponents
of it, I must say that none appeared in
opposition to it, we took a vote and as I
recall it was about a 9 to 3 or 4 for the
adoption of GP-4.
THE CHAIRMAN : Delegate Borom.
DELEGATE BOROM: One further ques-
tion: You mentioned that Mr. Polovoy tes-
tified before your Committee. You also
stated earlier that this particular section
gives no more to the General Assembly
than it already has in the way of power
to act on behalf of consumer protection.
What was Mr. Polovoy's feeling?
Did he think that by including such a
section in the constitution that the efforts
of his department would be strengthened
or enhanced in any way at all?
DELEGATE BOYER: So that there is
no misunderstanding, I don't believe, or I
did not intend to say that this does not
give the General Assembly anything it does
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not have. I was trying to answer Delegate
Smith specifically, did it enlarge the police
power of the General Assembly and my
answer to that was in the negative.
Attorney General Polovoy was interested
in seeing that this was included in the
constitution, so that there could be no mis-
take about the protection of the consumer,
so that this could help his department.
THE CHAIRMAN: Are there any fur-
ther questions?
Delegate Hardwicke?
DELEGATE HARDWICKE : Mr. Chair-
man of the Committee, with regard to the
words "protection" and "education", are
the definitions of those words and the ex-
tent to which those concepts shall be imple-
mented, completely left to the discretion of
the legislature?
DELEGATE BOYER: I think unless we
wanted to make about a 12-page or a 200-
page book trying to spell out an all-
inclusive definition of what these words
mean, I think that we would have to allow
some latitude to the General Assembly to
implement this by legislation. It was our
intention that the word "education" was to
make clear that the state's duties is not
discharged solely by the restriction or
punishing of unethical dealers after the
fact, but must include substantial efforts
to assist the public in recognizing an im-
proper transaction before the fact.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Hardwicke.
DELEGATE HARDWICKE: If this pro-
vision is in the new constitution, could the
General Assembly decide that no protection
for education was necessary at any given
time?
DELEGATE BOYER: Yes, it could de-
cide that and it could only be upset, I
imagine, by the challenge of a court test,
which would attempt to determine what
this Convention meant by these words.
THE CHAIRMAN: Are there any fur-
ther questions?
Delegate Burdette?
DELEGATE BURDETTE: Mr. Chair-
man, a question to the Chairman of the
Committee: I wonder if the Committee,
gave consideration to language, or let me
put it another way, was there any interpre-
tation of this which could even remotely
say that all business was harmful and
unfair. It certainly does not say that, but
my real question is, did the Committee give
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