All those in favor, signify by saying Aye;
contrary, No. The Ayes have it. It is so
ordered.
The next item of business is the Fifth
Report of the Committee on Rules, Creden-
tials and Convention Budget. This report is
with respect to a proposal that was sub-
mitted to the Convention on Friday, Sep-
tember 15, and referred to the Committee
on Rules. The Fifth Report is on your desk
today. Does everyone have a copy? The
Chair recognizes Delegate Scanlan, Chair-
man of the Committee.
DELEGATE SCANLAN: Mr. President,
fellow delegates, I have the honor to pre-
sent to the Convention the Fifth Report of
the Committee on Rules, Credentials and
Convention Budget. This report recom-
mends, and the committee favorably recom-
mends, that Rule 22 [23] of the present
Rules of the Convention be amended by
adding to the list of eleven standing com-
mittees provided for by that rule, an addi-
tional standing committee to be known as
the Committee on Public Information.
The proposal for this amendment, as you
know, originated with Delegate Robey, who
introduced it in the Convention last week.
There were a number of other delegates
who supported Delegate Robey's proposal.
Delegate Robey appeared three times, I be-
lieve, before the Committee on Rules, Cre-
dentials and Convention Budget to explain
his proposal. In addition, at one of the ses-
sions of the committee we were favored by
the President, who came and explained some
of the problems in the public information
area, and what the officers of the Conven-
tion were doing in an attempt to cooperate
with them.
Delegate Robey brought to the attention
of the committee numerous precedents in
other Constitutional Conventions; and some
of these are set forth in the appendix, which
is attached to the fifth report. The Mich-
igan Constitution is interesting. However,
I think they went further than your com-
mittee wishes to go in recommending a
Committee on Public Information. In Mich-
igan the Chairman of the Committee on
Public Information had supervisory author-
ity over the Michigan equivalent of the Di-
rector of Public Information.
The Committee felt that in view of the
clear statutory admonition found in section
14 of the Enabling Act that the creation
of the Commission was, if not necessary,
most desirable. In that section, the General
Assembly said, "The Convention shall estab-
lish an information service for the purpose |
of regularly communicating to the people
of Maryland information about all pertinent
issues and shall further provide for the
publication of the whole Constitution in
such manner and at such times after the
Constitution is proposed by the Convention
as will allow the people of Maryland an
opportunity to become informed before vot-
ing on May 14, 1968."
I think the Committee unanimously was
substantially in favor of dealing with this
matter by committee. There was some divi-
sion in the committee as to whether it
should be done through a new committee,
or whether the function of public informa-
tion as proposed here be vested in one of
the existing procedural committees such as,
for example, the Committee on Rules, but
a significant majority believed that the
matter would be best handled through the
creation of an additional committee, and
the report so recommended.
There was further discussion in the com-
mittee as to whether the duties and func-
tions of a Committee on Public Information
should be listed or specified in the Rules
themselves. Again, I think a substantial ma-
jority was against that. We noted that no
other rule, no other committee of the Con-
vention, has its functions listed in the Rules,
and we did not think there should be any
exception or any deviation from the com-
mittee structure in connection with the
creation of a Committee on Public Infor-
mation. However, the committee wanted to
make it perfectly clear, and I believe Dele-
gate Robey agreed that this was acceptable
to him, that in creating this committee, we
did not intend, at least our committee did
not intend it to be an administrative com-
mittee, with supervisory or day-to-day au-
thority over, say the Director of Public
Information, and the staff that would be
concerned with public information.
The committee would be advisory. It
would recommend and help in developing
proposed policy in the public information
area. Its recommendations would, I assume,
go first to the officers of the Convention. If
these were ignored or discarded or avoided
by the officers, then the committee, of
course, like any committee of this Conven-
tion could come to the Convention with its
proposal with respect to a certain policy
matter in the public information area, and
if the Convention approved what the com-
mittee did, then that would be the policy of
the Convention. A hypothetical example
comes to mind; for instance, perhaps when
we got into the Committee of the Whole,
the question might arise as to whether the
proceedings should be carried on live TV or |
