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If you are interested in knowing who the
pall bearers are, it seems that it does not
make much difference where the ceremony
takes place, upstairs or downstairs.
It seems to me in the interest of re-
sponsibility of the General Assembly, in the
interest of seeing to it that the public
knows who is responsible for what happens
in the General Assembly, that there is
every argument for the inclusion of the
sentence which the James amendment
would seek to delete, and I submit to you
that we are not trying to set up blocks or
impediments, or throw the road open or
close it with technical amendment. We
want good visibility and continued respon-
sibility.
I think the elimination of this particular
sentence would be most unfortunate. We
know the significance of the committee
votes in Maryland, and I submit to you
that we have a duty to see to it that the
committee votes are recorded so that the
public notes who stood up and who did not
when the chips were down.
I urge you to defeat the amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any delegate
desire to speak in favor of the amendment?
DELEGATE STORM: Mr. Chairman, I
have a question.
THE CHAIRMAN: To whom is it ad-
dressed?
DELEGATE STORM: Maybe you can
answer it. If you cannot, Delegate Galla-
gher could, if he has time.
Did the Committee consider whether or
not — you raised this question yesterday,
I think, and it seems very important to
me — did the Committee consider whether
or not each of these sentences would have
to be complied with strictly or the bill
would fail, or be considered unconstitu-
tional? Is each of these a constitutional re-
quirement for a valid bill?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gallagher.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Mr. Chair-
man, and ladies and gentlemen: The Com-
mittee did not specifically consider each
sentence in the light of what the failure to
carry out the duties of each sentence would
do to the legislature itself. As I said yester-
day, the Committee was not homicidally
bent, and it was never our intention to
have bills declared invalid as a result of
failure to follow any particular mandate
in this sentence. The. Chair pointed out yes-
terday the existence of the Redivood case,
which I read last night. The Court of Ap-
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peals already decided with respect to one
sentence in section 3.17, which we carried
over in the draft from the old Constitu-
tion, that the failure to file the recordings
of the Yeas and Nays in the Journal would
have the effect and did have the effect in
the public school construction bond case of
invalidating the legislation.
However, I do not presume to say and
would not urge what the legal effect of the
failure would be. I would simply say that
we tried to impose a duty upon the General
Assembly and would leave to the courts the
consequences of the failure to follow the
duty.
THE CHAIRMAN: Is there any further
question, Delegate Storm?
DELEGATE STORM: One more thing.
Mr. Gallagher, if a clerk made a mistake
in recording the committee votes, or if some
other mistake were made in the committee
records, would this perhaps make a bond
issue invalid?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gallagher.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: All I would
say to that is that in Redwood v. Lane
which I referred to, a clerk did make a
mistake. He pulled down what he thought
was a senate bill, which was in fact the
same number, but it was the house bill.
As a result of the handling of the matter
physically, there was actually no Yea and
Nay vote entered in the journal with re-
spect to this case, because the printer
thought he was correcting an error, and he
made a mistake in the way he did it. There
is no way that I know of that we can
guard against human errors and human
failures.
The lower court said if you had a clerk
who was deliberately out to sabotage you,
you would be very much at his mercy. But
nevertheless, the Court of Appeals in the
Redwood case found that the law had not
been complied with, and in that particular
respect it called a validation of the fact.
I do not urge, and the Committee does
not urge that particular effect upon the
failure to carry out the provisions herein.
I would say we do not designedly point to
that result. Again, it would be the legal in-
terpretation of the effects of the failure to
carry out the various sentence require-
ments.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Storm.
DELEGATE STORM: Thank you, Dele-
gate Gallagher.
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