the selection committee would prefer to
offer the Convention only one name, which,
of course, it could reject, as it makes clear
later on.
In 71B [77] we deal with the procedure,
of what happens if the name is rejected. In
that case you are referred to 71D, where
nominations from the floor would be in
order.
There is a provision for a runoff in the
event nobody is nominated. If there are
more than two names and nobody gets the
majority, there would be a second election
between the highest two.
Now, on the composition of the selection
committee as set forth in 71C [77], sub-
committees are to consist of not less than
three persons and shall include all remain-
ing delegates of the county or legislative
district of the delegate whose death or
resignation creates the vacancy. We come
to another area where Senator dark and
sponsors of this resolution have a difference
with the Committee. The Committee pro-
vides here that in the event there are only
two delegates remaining, the First Vice
President shall become a member of the
selection committee. In the event there is
only one delegate remaining as a result of
death or resignation, then the First Vice
President and the Second Vice-President
shall be added to the selection committee,
and in the event there are no delegates re-
maining after death or resignation in a
county, the First and Second Vice-President
shall be the selection committee. Originally,
as the committee had proposed it, if there
were not enough delegates left to make up
a full selection committee, the President
would have appointed a delegate from an
adjacent county to be a member of the selec-
tion committee. Listening to the arguments
of Senator dark, we felt there was merit
in the contention that you would be cutting
off the people of the area concerned, and
we changed it. However, we did not go as
far as the dark resolution; it proposed
that the matter then be referred back to
the local governing bodies.
Here we had some real problems with
that aspect of the dark resolution. I turn
now, if you will be so kind, to the language
of the statute which is set forth on the top
of page 3, dealing with the manner in which
vacancies are filled. In short, if the vacancy
had occurred before we convened in our
plenary session, Governor Agnew would
have had the power to fill the vacancy.
However, the statute is perfectly clear, that
if the vacancy exists or occurs after the |
first meeting of the Convention, the vacancy
shall be filled by the Convention.
There is some legislative history that ac-
companies this provision. In the report of
the proposed Enabling Act, which the Con-
stitutional Convention Commission sug-
gested to the Legislature, Section 7 as in-
troduced is not exactly the same in word-
ing as the way it came out; however, except
for a few grammatical changes, the lan-
guage is basically as it came from the Com-
mission with regard to the filling of vacan-
cies once the Convention has assembled. It
provides that once the Convention assem-
bles only the Convention, using such pro-
cedures as it may prescribe, has power to
fill the vacancy. This is in recognition of
the fact that once convened, the Convention
speaks for the people of the state, is the
final judge of the qualifications and elec-
tion of its members and should be entrusted
with the power to fill any vacancy there-
after occurring.
The precedents in other Constitutional
Conventions argue in both directions. In
the Michigan Convention, the power to fill
a vacancy inured to the Governor at all
times during the Convention. I believe, if
my memory serves me, he did exercise that
power on two or three occasions, providing
that the persons he designated had the
same qualifications as the persons whose
places they took. In the New Jersey Con-
vention of 1947, vacancies were filled by an
election of the County Board of Freeholders
of the county in which the vacancy existed.
In the Enabling Legislation for the 1965
New Jersey Convention the vacancies were
filled by the political party, our equivalent
of the State Central Committee. We con-
sidered this approach, but we considered
that our election was a non-partisan elec-
tion, and it seemed singly inappropriate to
. our committee to permit any political party
or the governing body of any political party
to be the body that filled the vacancy. In
the New York Convention, the recent one,
the enabling act under which it was held
perhaps furnishes the closest analogy. There
the remaining delegates from the legislative
districts in which the vacancy occurred had
the power to fill the vacancies. However,
New York had larger districts than we, and
there was no possibility there that fewer
than three or four people would have re-
mained to fill the vacancies, so while the
New York analogy was helpful and we
relied on it in part in the course we have
chosen, it did not fit our situation precisely.
Now, I think I can speak for the Com-
mittee when I say no matter what alter- |
