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to do those functions and duties, but it
was the intention of the Committee to
treat this as the existing Board of Public
Works and, of course, the legislature can
give added power to the Board of Public
Works if it wants to.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Marion.
DELEGATE MARION: Is it not true
that most if not all of these powers today
are statutory powers?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Morgan.
DELEGATE MORGAN: That is correct.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Marion.
DELEGATE MARION: My question, or
my concern is why there is need in this
amendment to enumerate a series of powers
which are presently statutory powers and
which the General Assembly may or may
not prescribe, but must in any event act
by law to give, and whether or not there
would be more constitutional neatness, if
you would just end that sentence with the
word, "prescribed".
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Morgan.
DELEGATE MORGAN: Well, I person-
ally do not believe so. I think the Constitu-
tion ought to give some idea to what the
Convention meant by creating a board of
review, what sort of thing it had in mind,
at least some benchmark. That is not going
to prevent the General Assembly from
giving anything else, but it at least indi-
cates what the Convention had in mind in
the purpose for which it created this board
of review.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Case.
DELEGATE CASE: Mr. Chairman, fol-
lowing along the same basic inquiry that
has been suggested to you by Delegate
Marion, I suggest to you in line 15 that
there is an improper statement, at least
it is to me, where the power is given to the
Board of Public Works to create state debt.
Only the General Assembly can incur debt,
as I understand it. What I think you mean
is the issuance and sale of certain cate-
gories representing state debt, and I call
your attention to line 25, which deals with
the expenditures from the general emer-
gency fund of the State. There is no Con-
stitutionally-designated fund known as the
general emergency fund, and, as a matter
of fact, expenditures from that fund would
probably be taken care of by the provisions
in section 5, or subsection 5, beginning at
line 23, which are expenditures of lump
sum appropriations.
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It seems to me if this is going to be
passed, certainly line 15 has to be cor-
rected, I would think. I would hope the
Committee would go along with that, and
I would also think that lines 25 and 26
should be eliminated. This all goes to point
up the suggestion which I think Delegate
Marion has made, namely, that the enu-
meration of these powers, which are no-
where found in the Constitution today, at
least not in this form, are really going to
serve to confuse rather than help the situa-
tion. I am wondering whether or not it
probably cannot be met by doing as Dele-
gate Marion has suggested, namely, saying
that the Board shall perform in such
manner and have such powers as the Gen-
eral Assembly may prescribe, with a fairly
full explanation on your part, or your
vice-chairman, if he is the person that
might be selected to do so, so that the
record of this Convention will clearly show
what you intended.
Could this not be gotten at in that way
and in doing so, produce a much neater
and better document?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Morgan.
DELEGATE MORGAN: Delegate Case,
I will have no objection to that. I think
the record is now clear as to what we have
put forth or reviewed in the constitution.
We are certainly not limiting the General
Assembly in giving the Board any addi-
tional functions, but it is the intention of
the Convention to have the board of re-
view have such functions of the existing
Board of Public Works as the General As-
sembly might prescribe, and such other
functions as the General Assembly might
prescribe. I think that with that explana-
tion of intention in the record of this Con-
vention we can strike out, beginning with
the word, "including, " in line 12, the rest
of the amendment down through line 28,
and striking out the comma after "pre-
scribe" and inserting a period.
THE CHAIRMAN: Do you so modify
your amendment, Delegate Morgan?
DELEGATE MORGAN: I do, Mr.
Chairman.
THE CHAIRMAN: The amendment is
modified by striking the word, "including",
at the end of line 12, inserting a period
after the word, "prescribe", striking all of
lines 13 to 28 inclusive.
Delegate Case, do you have a further
question?
DELEGATE CASE: No, sir.
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