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Ultimately the federal district court had
to do the job. I do not say that the best
elements of the three unused plans were
not contained in the federal district court
plan. Perhaps the worst elements were, but
all the federal district court succeeded in
doing was to keep the population variance
at a minimum and it succeeded in chopping
up Anne Arundel County and Baltimore
County into ways which the residents of
neither of those counties are pleased with.
I understand, and I agree with them and
I sympathize with them. This might help
with some of these significant jobs that you
are complaining about.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Weide-
meyer.
DELEGATE WEIDEMEYER: Do you
not think there ought to be a little lan-
guage in here similar to what you sug-
gested yesterday, as near as practicable, or
something like that, so that we are not
frozen with hidebound language of, "shall
consist of adjoining territory," when in
some instances in order to work out the job,
we may have to get away from adjoining
territories in order to work the thing out
equitably?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gallagher.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: If the gen-
tleman is displeased with it he always has
the privilege of voting against it or offering
an amendment to delete it.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Hardwicke.
DELEGATE HARDWICKE: Mr. Chair-
man of the Committee, I would like to have
you yield for a question, please.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gallagher.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Yes.
THE CHAIRMAN: State your question.
DELEGATE HARDWICKE: I would
like to draw your attention to the differ-
ence in language between your congres-
sional districting provision, redistricting
provision and your legislative districting
provision.
In line 18, on page 1, you provide with
regard to legislative districts, that natural
boundaries and the boundaries of political
subdivisions shall be followed insofar as
practicable.
When you drafted the congressional re-
districting language, you modified that to
read, reading in lines 8 and 9, "due regard
should be given to natural boundaries and
the boundaries of political subdivisions."
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Now, let me ask you, do you mean some-
thing less, some less attention with"-- regard
to congressional districts, or the same at-
tention?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gallagher.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: May I
point out to Delegate Hardwicke that last
evening we amended section 3.02 to have
it read, as is proposed in Amendment No.
23, which was, "due regard shall be given
to natural boundaries and the boundaries
of political subdivisions/' so that the pro-
posal in Amendment No. 23 is identical to
what we adopted last night in 3.02 as
amended. Those two are now the same.
The reason for not using the word "prac-
ticable" and going to "due regard" was
that we wanted the primary consideration
to be the substantially equal representa-
tion, and the due regard to natural boun-
daries and the boundaries of political sub-
divisions to be of less consequence than the
attempts to achieve substantially equal
representation.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Hardwicke.
DELEGATE HARDWICKE: Thank you.
I was not aware of the amendment. Thank
you for calling it to my attention.
1 would like to phrase one further point
with regard to this. In the present con-
gressional redistricting drawn by the dis-
trict court, and I am familiar with it as
some of the suggestions I made are in
there, one of them in particular relates to
the beltway around the city of Baltimore.
There, Mr. Chairman, the beltway of the
City of Baltimore or around the City of
Baltimore forms the boundary for certain
of the metropolitan congressional districts.
Would you not permit in your language
such artificial boundaries to be used in
congressional redistricting?
In other words, would you upset the
present plan, since your language does not
permit a boundary such as the beltway to
l)e taken into account?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gallagher.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: No, I think
the gentleman misunderstands the intent of
the section.
Constitutionally, this much the legisla-
ture is required to do, namely, to give due
regard to natural boundaries and the boun-
daries of political subdivisions.
This does not eliminate the right of the
General Assembly to consider other arti-
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