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voting to put into this constitution. It will
afford the people of this State more pro-
tection over the years than almost anything
we can do.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any other dele-
gate desire to speak in opposition?
Delegate Winslow?
DELEGATE WINSLOW: In response to
a question raised by Delegate Raley he
read: "The Executive power of the state
shall be vested in the government", and
he asked whether that would block the
Board of Public Works. The 1867 Consti-
tution, Article I says "The Executive power
of a State shall be vested in a governor."
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any delegate
desire to speak in favor of the amendment
in opposition to Committee Recommenda-
tion EB-1?
Does any delegate desire to speak in op-
position to the amendment?
Delegate Hanson.
DELEGATE HANSON: Mr. Chairman,
I have listened with interest to this debate,
and there are some questions which con-
tinue to exist in my mind which seem to
me to tip the balance very heavily in favor
of the Committee Recommendation and
against including the Board of Public
Works in the constitution.
First of all, if we are going to create
such an organization within the constitu-
tion, I think it is incumbent upon us to say
in the constitution what that organization
is to do. Yet we learned that all of the
functions now performed are performed
by statute and properly should be per-
formed by statute. Some of the functions
now performed might properly be taken
away and placed somewhere else, for in-
stance, the power to approve leases, or
some of the other activities which are
carried on by the board which could be
better vested in a new department of ad-
ministration or some new executive agency.
Another problem which seems to me to
be revealed in the statements of most of
the delegates in favor of the retention of
the Board of Public Works is a basic dis-
trust in the chief executive of the State.
They agree, however, that the Board of
Public Works should not prevent the gov-
ernor from acting, and therefore they argue
that it would be all right with them if we
added two new members to the Board of
Public Works so that the governor would
always have a majority on this particular
Board.
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There are two questions that arise as a
result of this piece of revelation: First of
all, in the Board of Public Works as it is
presently constituted in the Constitution,
while you could argue that if you had two
fine, outstanding public spirited officials in
addition to the governor and the governor
were corrupt, they would certainly check
him. But what is there in the constitution
as provided that would protect us from
two inept officials and a good, public
spirited governor? There is nothing.
They could say this could be taken care
of by the governor making two of his own
appointments. You cannot have it work
both ways. If the objective of public works
is to give us public disclosure, it can be
done by statute. It is not a constitutional
provision that the activities of the Board
be disclosed to the governor, but statutory.
It would also be most inadvisable to
place in the constitution the right of two
gubernatorial appointees to sit on the
Board of Public Works. It would seem to
me then unless these arguments can be an-
swered — and I have not heard them an-
swered thus far — that we should allow the
legislature to create a Board of Public
Works, but we should not ourselves create
such a Board in the constitution.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any other dele-
gate desire to speak in favor of the amend-
ment?
Delegate Chabot.
DELEGATE CHABOT: I must regret-
fully depart from three of the delegates in
Montgomery County.
Section 4.19 provides at lines 26 and 27
that the governor may increase, modify, de-
crease, diminish, and change their func-
tions, powers and duties — that is, the func-
tions, powers and duties of any of the
agencies or officers of the executive branch,
and presumably if the legislature estab-
lished a Board of Public Works under the
proposal of the Executive Branch Commit-
tee, it would be one of the things whose
powers could be so affected by the governor.
It is true that the legislature has an oppor-
tunity to override any attempt by the gov-
ernor to make ineffective establishment of
such a board, but the legislature has to do
it by acting within fifty days after the
governor has submitted his reorganization
recommendation, and as we know from the
current constitution and some opportunity
to look at the other committee recommenda-
tions, that this is just the very time that
the legislature, to the extent that it is in-
volved in any great activity, is probably
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