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DELEGATE CASE: I want to be
accurate.
DELEGATE CLAGETT: —with par-
ticular reference to the equalization for-
mula where greater appropriation would
have to be made in order to take care of
the equalization, that is, appropriation
from general funds, as I understand it
from the Chair.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Case may
understand that last part, but I am frank
to say that the Chair does not.
DELEGATE CASE: There is no answer
to that. I will have to say that there is no
answer. I could not give you an answer. I
can give you a synopsis of the testimony
that was presented to our Committee with
respect to this subject as to why farming
should receive this use type of assessment,
but there is no answer to the second part
of your question.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Clagett.
DELEGATE CLAGETT: Let us leave
that second part out for a moment and let
us get the answer to the first.
DELEGATE CASE: Now, you under-
stand, Delegate Clagett, that I have at-
tempted to present to you what the wit-
nesses said before our Committee. The fact
is that they gave a great number of
reasons why they felt that special treat-
ment should be afforded. The principal
reason was that being forced to pay taxes
on the market value assessed, the bona fide
farmer could not operate at a profit. He
would find the profit so slight as to make
attractive the prospect of selling his farm.
I think every man who came before the
Committee stressed this point so that was
point one, the profitability or lack thereof
of the farmers in this State, if they are
required to pay assessments on a value
basis rather than on a use basis. In addi-
tion, there were a number of people who
felt that the aesthetics of the State would
be enhanced by the non-proliferation of
developments, particularly in the edges of
the cities. It was felt that a good social
value was to reach for and obtain open
spaces in and about the cities. We see
where the Chairman of the Committee and
our President and I both live, a concerted
effort on the part of a great many people
to establish what is called a plan for the
valleys which will permit farms to operate
in close to urban areas providing thereby
open spaces of the kind that we all like to
contemplate. So from both the economic
standpoint of the actual values and the
social values based on society in general,
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we urge that this recommendation be made
mandatory.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Chabot.
DELEGATE CHABOT: Delegate Case,
I thought I understood your answers to my
earlier questions about 8.02, and I thought
that your colloquy with Delegate Sybert
was completely in keeping with those an-
swers, but I am confused by your responses
to Delegate Henderson and to the Chair-
man of the Committee of the Whole.
DELEGATE CASE: You will have to
tell me where you are confused. Up to this
point, you have got me confused.
DELEGATE CHABOT: My question re-
lates to whether or not it would be com-
petent for the General Assembly, and I am
not talking about wisdom, for the General
Assembly to enact a set of agricultural
classifications which will differentiate be-
tween a farm owned and operated by a per-
son who derived, say, the majority of his
income from farming and a similar farm
owned and operated by a person who did
not derive the majority of his income from
farming.
DELEGATE CASE: You are asking me
to usurp the prerogatives of the court. I
could not do that. All I can tell you is that
this gives the legislature the broadest
power to make meaningful classifications.
That is what we intended to do. If the
court rules that the classification suggested
by Judge Henderson is unreasonable, then
it is invalid. I do not know what the courts
would rule on a case like that any more
than I suppose you know, but there is cer-
tainly nothing in this that would permit
the legislature from attempting it if they
wish to do so.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Chabot.
DELEGATE CHABOT: In all of our
efforts to explain our language here we are
not trying to usurp the power of the courts.
We are trying to tell the courts what we
mean by the use of these words. My ques-
tion to you is would you understand this
concept of reasonable classifications as it
is embodied in section 8.02 which was pre-
sented by your Committee to permit the
legislature to make that sort of classifica-
tion if it saw fit to do so?
DELEGATE CASE: As I answered to
Delegate Henderson and to the Chairman,
in my opinion it would be quite unreason-
able if it were just that and that alone,
and I would argue strenuously against it.
If that conflicts with anything I said to you
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