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noon about section 3.17 about whether it
will keep a transcript and whether it will
do all these things. Is that needless too?
DELEGATE SGANLAN: I will confess
that perhaps on this point I am open to the
charge of advising you here on this in-
stance to do as I say and not as I did in
supporting my Chairman in the debate on
Senator James' amendments. I do think
there is a distinction. The section, was it
3.17, that dealt with the legislative proce-
dure was in a sense laying restrictions on
the legislative activity in the public inter-
est. It could be fairly argued that the re-
strictions laid upon them were restrictions
that should not rise to the level of constitu-
tional amendments. I feel otherwise. There
you were laying restrictions on the exer-
cise of legislative procedure as opposed to
legislative power in the public interest.
Here you are telling the legislature to act
in a situation where there is no power on
earth except the power of the people to
require them to act, when they have the
power already to act. As a matter of fact,
it is really quite unfair, it is a delusion
to put this in the constitution and say
presto we will have an effective conflict of
interest legislation. I think in a few years
we will have. I understand the legislative
counsel is pursuing it, and despite the pre-
vious failures the new legislature is with
us, and I do believe we are going to reach
that point. I do not mean to suggest that
conflict of intere.st legislation is not im-
portant; it is very important, but it does
not in my opinion rise to the level of con-
stitutional dimension.
THE CHAIRMAN: Are there any fur-
ther questions of the minority spokesman?
If not, you may return to your seat, and
we will consider the amendment.
During the interlude I can announce a
note has been handed to me indicating the
score is 19 to 4 in favor of the Navy. That
is the final score. I do not know what
effect the resolution adopted several days
ago had on that.
DELEGATE JAMES: Mr. Chairman, I
call for the removal of the sign, "Go
Army"!
(Laughter.)
THE CHAIRMAN: The Chair would
like to state at this time in view of the
hour and the rather strenuous week that
we have put in and the fact that there are
a few more amendments that I would hope
we could conclude consideration of this
recommendation within the next thirty min-
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utes or so and then adjourn until Monday
and not begin a consideration of the next
item on the agenda.
Have the pages distributed Amend-
ment D?
The Clerk will read the amendment.
READING CLERK: Amendment No. 24
to accompany Minority Report LB-2 (B),
by Delegates Scanlan, Della, Gilchrist, Lin-
ton, Peters:
On page 5 strike out all of section 3.18
Conflict of Interest comprising1 lines 2I>
through 28, inclusive.
THE CHAIRMAN: The amendment
marked "D" is Amendment No. 24.
The amendment having been seconded is
before you. Delegate Scanlan has indicated
he does not desire to discuss it further at
this time. The Chair recognizes Delegate
Gallagher.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Mr. Chair-
man and ladies and gentlemen : I will not
abuse the kindness of the Convention by
going too long. I will say when Delegate
Scanlan goes one way and Delegate Galla-
gher goes another it is a new version of
Irish partition, which I am unhappy to see,
because generally the celebrated member of
Montgomery County is with the Committee
by and large.
I should like to say that in view of the
history of what has happened with con-
flict of interest legislation and code of
ethics legislation here in Maryland, that is
to say, a uniform history of failure in the
past three or four years of twenty-seven
bills, at least twenty-four of them were
turned down, died and never saw the light
of day, it is quite obvious that there is not
going to be any conflict of interest or code
of ethics legislation unless there is some
prodding power or some provoking force. I
submit to you that that provoking force is
not going to be the public, and I submit
if there is going to be any effective prod-
ding it is going to be this Constitutional
Convention and the language that we pro-
vide. Now, last year two bills were re-
ferred to the special subcommittee on that
subject matter, and that subcommittee
came back with the wonderful idea that
there indeed ought to be a conflict of in-
terest legislation, but it only should apply
to the executive branch of government and
not to the General Assembly of Maryland,
so they have nicely handled that problem.
In order to see to it, however, that there
should be some kind of regulation with
respect to the General Assembly of Mary-
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