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I think that that is something that the
present members of the General Assembly
seem to overlook at times; that there are
many pieces of legislation which in the
whole context of legislative matters that
come before a session may be classified as
trivial in nature. These matters it should
be possible to get by so as to leave more
time to deliberative judgment within the
forums with respect to major pieces of
legislation and let me nail if I can one
thing right to the wall. They talk about
eleven members passing a piece of legis-
lation. If you will read the Majority Re-
port, you have to have a quorum present,
so at any time any member of the house,
either in the House of Delegates or the
Senate may investigate a piece of legisla-
tion about to go through and if he feels
that there should be more members present,
all he has to do is stand on his feet and
say, I suggest the absence of a quorum,
and that will take care of it.
THE CHAIRMAN: You have one min-
ute, Delegate Gleason.
DELEGATE GLEASON: Recently, with-
in the past two or three weeks a situation
developed in the State of Michigan. I would
refer you to the fact that Michigan is one
of the twenty-six states that requires a
majority of the members elected to pass a
bill. At that time the governor of the State
had recommended for part of his program
a bill to be adopted by the legislature of
Michigan, and I have to say, it was mem-
bers of my own party that took a walk and
brought that legislature to a standstill.
They could not pass that legislation be-
cause they required a majority of the mem-
bers voting and elected. This is what the
majority report gets at. We want to free
the hands of the legislature so that if at
any time you have a vigilant minority that
says, we are not going to cooperate and
pass legislation, we are going to go home,
the legislature will not be brought to a
standstill.
I would urge you to reject the minority
report.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gilchrist.
DELEGATE GILCHRIST: I yield two
minutes to Delegate James.
DELEGATE JAMES: Mr. Chairman
and fellow delegates, I would like to speak
in opposition to the Committee Report and
in favor of the minority report.
I am in favor of the minority report be-
cause I feel the majority report is, first of
all, undemocratic. It seems to me that in a
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legislative body, a bill should have a vote
on final passage of the majority of the
membership. This is the responsibility of
the legislative body. A bill should not pro-
ceed in the order of becoming law unless
it has votes of the entire membership.
We have never had any problem about
attendance in the General Assembly. We
have never had a problem such as that
cited in Michigan. Most of the sessions of
the Senate are attended 100 percent. It is
seldom that you have even one or two ab-
sences. The members of the Senate are
very faithful in their attendance, and I
can say that the House members are
equally faithful so that we have a his-
toric record of a very good attendance in
the General Assembly. This proposal would
jeopardize that. We certainly do not want
to follow the congressional path, in which
the quorum rule promotes absenteeism. We
certainly do not want to be in a situation
where a 435 member house is passing legis-
lation with 140 members voting for it. This
certainly is not a good thing. The people
of America really do not know and do not
comprehend the absenteeism that exists in
Congress. It is one of the worst things
about the federal government, this type of
absenteeism.
THE CHAIRMAN: You have a quarter
of a minute.
DELEGATE JAMES: We do not want
to promote this type of thing in Mary-
land. We want to adhere to a rule which
promotes attendance and which requires
people to attend, or requires the majority
membership.
I would like to call your attention to one
point. Under one of these sections a mem-
ber could be expelled with three-fifths of
a quorum so that you would be expelling
people under one of these proposals with-
out the necessity of a majority vote.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gallagher.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Mr. Chair-
man, I yield the remaining three minutes
to Delegate Hanson.
DELEGATE HANSON: Mr. Chairman,
I do not believe that the problem of at-
tendance will be affected very much one
way or the other by this proposal. In the
Congress of the United States, when there
is anything that is important to vote on,
the attendance is very high.
I think that the good attendance that we
have had in the Maryland General Assem-
bly will continue, whether we have this
amendment or whether we do not have this
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