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I think in the long run we have to trust
the General Assembly to carry out its
duties. So long as the General Assembly
is the repository of the legislative power,
they should be permitted to exercise that
power and when they do not, then we turn
them out at the next election. The only
conspicuous exception should be when they
use the legislative power to trespass upon
the fundamental rights in our Anglo-Saxon
tradition of free speech, free exercise of
religion, non-establishment of religion,
habeas corpus and the rest. These are pro-
tections against the misuse of legislative
power. The majority proposal is another
example of affirmatively making the legisla-
ture do something. I suggest if this is
carried too far we really undercut the
basic assumptions of representative gov-
ernment, that the representatives of the
people are entitled to govern. I think in
this instance the Convention would be
again making a mistake and I think we
have made a few in the past in the words
of I guess it was Hamlet in the previous
two examples: "Error will creep into the
affairs of state and be recorded as a
precedent," and I know you will cite against
me the precedent of the conservation clause
and the consumer protection clause, both
of which I was irrevocably and remain ir-
revocably opposed to.
Dean Pound admonished the New Jersey
Convention when he was giving them a
little peptalk and they heeded his lesson.
He said the important thing to remember,
perhaps more important in drafting a con-
stitution, was not what you put in but
what you leave out. And he drew attention
to the fact that of all the poets of antiquity
Homer was the greatest because he knew
what to leave out. I do hope this Conven-
tion in this instance at least does remember
what to leave out. I think this is a clause
or proposal that can be left out completely
and perhaps arrest the trend of putting too many unenforceable ultimatums and
pious statements of legislative policy in
what should be a charter of government.
As I said before, I will not make any fur-
ther argument except in the uncontrolled
time, but I will be glad to answer any
questions if I can.
THE CHAIRMAN: Are there any ques-
tions of the minority spokesman?
Delegate Pascal.
DELEGATE PASCAL: Delegate Scan-
lan, you referred in your remarks to the
Florida Constitution which was just re-
written; is that right?
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DELEGATE SCANLAN: No, it was a
statute.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Pascal.
DELEGATE PASCAL: The statute
came from what? The constitutional amend-
ment? I thought they were in the process
of reorganizing their Constitution, isn't
that correct?
DELEGATE SCANLAN: They are in
the process of reorganization, but I do not
believe it has passed. Whatever they did,
they did by statute under which 1 assumed
was the plenary power that the Maryland
.state legislature has. All state legislatures
to my mind have plenary power except as
restricted by the Constitution of the United
States or their own state constitution.
DELEGATE PASCAL: Correct me if I
am wrong. It was my source of information
that in Florida, the legislature is rewriting
the constitution and they made the recom-
mendation to themselves, so to speak, to
write in the conflict of interest law. Is that
not correct?
DELEGATE SCANLAN: I do not be-
lieve that is correct. I believe the statute
they passed they passed under their exist-
ing power. It is true as I understand that
they are rewriting their constitution, but
whatever they did by way of reform in
the conflict of interest field they did under
existing legislative power. There is only
one state to my knowledge that has a pro-
vision which is supposed to be like the one
proposed, California. Many states have re-
striction on dual officeholding, and of course
we have a restriction or two on that type of
limited conflict of interest area. Apparently
only one state has a grant to act in this
field. That is California. I asked the staff
to produce this particular clause, but when
we went to the California Constitution we
could not find it so I do not know exactly
what it says. They are the only state that
has anything like that. I would gather
from what Mr. Margolis said that that
would not apply in California. The Cali-
fornia legislation has plenary power.
THE CHAIRMAN: The Chair can clar-
ify the status in Florida a little bit. A pro-
posed new constitution was drafted by a
commission, submitted to the legislature,
which has not acted upon it.
Delegate Raley.
DELEGATE RALEY: Delegate Scanlan,
I am very interested in what you have said
that these things are meaningless, that con-
flict of interest does not amount to any-
thing, but we have been talking all after-
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