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Thank you.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
The Chair recognizes Delegate Adkins.
DELEGATE ADKINS: Mr. Chairman,
I yield three minutes of the majority time
to Delegate Marvin Smith.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
Delegate Marvin Smith.
DELEGATE M. SMITH: Let me say at
the outset that the present comptroller and
treasurer of Maryland is my good friend
from college days, who even then was treas-
urer of every organization on the college
campus. I talked with him as recently as
Saturday night, and I promised myself
when I came over here that I was going to
do my best to act in accordance with what
I conceived to be in the best interests of
the people of the State of Maryland, and
not on the basis of personal friendship.
Delegate Finch has in effect said that we
should have four branches of government,
the legislative, the judicial, and one part
executive, which administers the law and
another that collects the money.
This is a new concept, and I should like
to point out two things to you, sir:
(1) Basically and fundamentally the
comptroller of the treasury of Maryland
has not been selected by the people of
Maryland. Now, go back and check it out.
I looked this morning at the Maryland
Manual. It must have gone from 1919 on,
with the possible exception of 1938 — and
I am not knowledgeable enough with refer-
ence to that particular election to know
how people lined up — but moving from
1919 on, the comptroller of the treasury of
Maryland has been hand-picked by the es-
tablishment in this State, despite the fact
that in a number of recent years the per-
son who has been elected comptroller has
not been of the same party or of the same
faction as all of the group that ultimately
ended up with the nomination or the elec-
tion insofar as governor was concerned.
The duties are ministerial, and if you
will examine section 2 of Article VI of the
present Maryland Constitution you will
find that the duties set down there are
ministerial, such as preparing estimates of
revenue to adjust and settle on terms pre-
scribed by law with delinquent collectors
and so forth.
I submit to you, Mr. Chairman, that it is
the duty and the responsibility of the ex-
ecutive to be responsible to the people of
Maryland on such things as this.
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DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
You have thirty seconds.
DELEGATE M. SMITH: I would go one
step further and point out to you that even
in this matter of independence, the comp-
troller has failed. I would point out to you
two counties, side by side, with relatively
similar population, clerk's offices with ap-
proximately the same income, and one end-
ing up with a $6,000 profit, the other a
$900 loss.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
Your time is up, sir.
Delegate Sybert.
DELEGATE SYBERT: Mr. Chairman,
I thank the last speaker, Delegate Smith,
for pointing out that the present comp-
troller began, even in college, in his tender
years, to train himself as fiscal officer by
building the treasury of that building com-
mittee. I now yield three minutes to Dele-
gate Catherine Robie.
DELEGATE ROBIE: Mr. Chairman and
fellow delegates:
I would like to ask your support to retain
the comptroller and attorney general as
elective officers. I hate to disagree with
Delegate Boyce when he said that the
people do not know what they want, be-
cause I found that this was not true in
Prince George's County, when our cam-
paign for delegate to this Convention was
being waged. We went into that campaign
saying that we were to come to Annapolis
with an open mind, and we found very soon
that that was not going to work. In our
area, which is the southern part of Prince
George's County, the people had one real
interest in this Convention and, of course,
we hoped that they would have many more
interests, but the one thing that they were
adamant on was that when we came to
Annapolis we would see to it that their
vote was retained for the comptroller and
the attorney general.
I would say that we ran into this atti-
tude at least 100 to 1 in the part of the
county from which we come, and I would
say that we would not be here, those from
our area, if we had not said that we stood
for this position.
This official performs a vital administra-
tive and policy making function which is
far from non-technical, as it has been de-
scribed. It has worked well over these many
years. The supervision and control of over
$1 billion of State funds annually is cer-
tainly important. Regardless of what we
have heard, I believe that the checks and
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