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Proceedings and Debates of the 1967 Constitutional Convention
Volume 104, Volume 1, Debates 1246   View pdf image (33K)
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1246 CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF MARYLAND [Nov. 27]

THE CHAIRMAN: I am afraid your
time has become expired. You have too
little time even for a question to be stated.

DELEGATE MAURER: I apologize.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Raley.

DELEGATE RALEY: I want to direct
a question to Chairman Morgan.

THE CHAIRMAN: Does any delegate
want to speak in favor of the amendment
against the Committee Report? Delegate
Child.

DELEGATE CHILD: Mr. Chairman, I
come from a small county and Delegate
Grant and myself are not supposed to be
listened to very much, but we would like
to give you our views just the same.

It seems to me that the people who cre-
ated this Board of Public Works did a
pretty good job. First the people elected a
governor so that the governor as one mem-
ber of that Board is directly responsible
to the people.

Secondly, the people elected the legisla-
ture and the legislature in turn elects a
treasurer and the treasurer is indirectly
responsible to the people.

Thirdly, the comptroller is elected di-
rectly by the people and directly responsi-
ble to the people so that you have three
people composing this Board who are di-
rectly or indirectly responsible to the
people.

The system has worked. The Board of
Public Works has worked. There has been
little or no criticism in my time against
the Board of Public Works and the ques-
tion I ask is: If we have something that
has worked for a hundred years, why
change it for something that we know
naught of?

Now, another thing from the small
town — we have taken away our representa-
tives in the legislature; perhaps we will
have to travel seventy-five miles to find
out who our delegate is, but we would like
the privilege of electing a comptroller.

You have taken away a lot of our money
in taxes and every time that the legisla-
ture meets, they take away a little bit
more, so we would like to be able to vote
for the man who collects that money and
go to see him if we get anything wrong
with our tax return.

I am for this amendment. I am for the
Board of Public Works.

THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Morgan,
do you yield to a question from Delegate
Storm?

DELEGATE MORGAN: I do.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Storm.

DELEGATE STORM: Chairman Mor-
gan, was it not true that the Committee on
the Executive Branch was originally di-
vided 10 to 10 and one changed in order
to make you able to have the Majority and
Minority Reports?

THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Morgan.
DELEGATE MORGAN: One did change.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Storm.

DELEGATE STORM: One other ques-
tion. The lady from Montgomery County
said with the managerial revolution, we
had to have our state function as an effi-
cient and vast business enterprise.

Is it not true that some of the majority
feel that the state of Maryland should be
run for the benefit of stockholders as they
term the voters, and that business prac-
tices in management should be followed to
the extent that the head of the corpora-
tion would have unbridled power. Was this
the philosophy of some of the majority?

THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Morgan.

DELEGATE MORGAN: I would sug-
gest that the head of a corporation has a
lot more power than the governor of Mary-
land does at the present time.

THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Storm.

DELEGATE STORM: Is it not true that
if we do away with the Board of Public
Works, and enable the governor to make
decisions of a legislative character and
sell property of the state and execute
leases, he will then be more like a corpora-
tion executive and he will be very efficient
but not a governor?

THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Morgan.

DELEGATE MORGAN: Both you and
Delegate Sherbow, I submit, are laboring
under a misapprehension.

I specifically said in the presentation of
the Committee Report, that the Committee
was not recommending that the Board of
Public Works be abolished. All \ve were
doing was recommending that it not be es-
tablished in the constitution.

Delegate Sherbow said that if the legis-
lature tried to mess around with the Board

 

 

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Proceedings and Debates of the 1967 Constitutional Convention
Volume 104, Volume 1, Debates 1246   View pdf image (33K)
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