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THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Case.
DELEGATE CASE: Do you mean to
say that the governor could not, or a re-
districting commission similar to that es-
tablished for the General Assembly, could
not be provided for here?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gallagher.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: You could
provide for a redistricting commission, but
you could never provide in my opinion that
the commission plan would become law.
Something further must happen, and that
is to say the General Assembly must be the
final actor in the process. That is to say,
whatever plan is adopted must be a plan
that is ultimately adopted by the General
Assembly. You could use the commission
idea to start it oft', or to initiate it.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Case.
DELEGATE CASE: Can you tell mo
what authority there is for that statement?
In other words, why can it be one way for
the state representative body and cannot be
that way for the federal?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gallagher.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Well, all
the writing in the congressional quarterly
publication that was put out with respect
to congressional districting speaks in terms
of having to be accomplished by the Gen-
eral Assembly.
In addition to that, there is provision in
the Constitution of the U. S., section 4, of
Article 1, which says times, places, and
manner of holding elections for senators
and representatives shall be prescribed in
each state by the legislature thereof.
So it would seem that the General As-
sembly must actually do it.
Apportioning is done by the Congress, or
the federal government, and districting is
accomplished by the legislature of the
state. I think that is the judicial method
of approach.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Weide-
meyer.
DELEGATE WEJDEMEYER: Mr.
President, I would like to ask a question
or two of the Chairman.
In this amendment, and without quali-
fication it seems to read, each district shall
consist of adjoining territory and be com-
pact.
The Chair knows that under the court
plan, in order to preserve the three con-
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gressmen from Baltimore City and .their
seniority, they had to get away from the
adjoining territory theory and had to join
Talbot County and southern Anne Arundel,
skip the Chesapeake Bay and go over into
the Eastern Shore. If they did not do that,
they would have had to take the Eastern
Shore and 'ignore natural boundaries and
probably come up into Harford County, or
take a slice of Harford County, in order to
get population.
Do you think it well that we freeze lan-
guage in that makes it mandatory, that
they shall consist of adjoining territory,
when under certain circumstances we may
have to jump across the Chesapeake Bay,
jump across the Susquehanna River, or
swim across -the Potomac in order to get
brethren?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gallagher.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: It is obvi-
ous that Delegate Weidemeyer is not
pleased hv what the federal district court
did.
The Federal district court was not re-
quired to follow any of these tests, because
since 1929 there had been in effect from
the federal point of view no tests, so you
have your congressmen and how you went
about dividing up the districts was solely a
state matter.
As 1 said before, this would be an at-
tempt to return to some of the earlier re-
quirements of the Congress of the United
States, and I cannot fault the gentleman
that there can be congressional districts
with which people are dissatisfied.
1 would not seek to do the redistricting
here. I would simply say that this provides
a test which assures some fairness.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Weide-
meyer.
DELEGATE WEIDEMEYER: In view
of the fact that Maryland has all these
natural resources, the Chesapeake Bay and
the beautiful river, and we cannot in all
instances and under all circumstances have
adjoining territories, the further question
is, do you think that we ought to press it in
the constitutional language where the legis-
lature cannot act because of language in
the Constitution that restricts them from
doing the kind of job that they would like
to do and be fair to everybody concerned?
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: When the
legislature had a free hand it tried three
times, 1961, 1963 and 1965, to come up with
a congressional redistricting plan, none of
which ever saw the light of day.
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