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in this whole field, to tell us what has
become of the provision in the present Con-
stitution relating to the requirement that
you cannot increase salaries during the
term of office.
This is, so far as judges are concerned
who are elected to judges' long-time terms
of 15 years, simply to find another way of
increasing salaries.
This is done by supplementary salary
payments from the political subdivision.
This is being cut out by what we have de-
cided here in the judicial branch revision.
Even worse, you come to a public ser-
vant who is in office whose term runs for
four years and he has been elected for the
next four years.
Does that mean that he must always
have the original salary that he went in
with? How do you change it? The attorney
general ruled it could be done. If he takes
office on January 1, it can be done as of
December 1.
We found that this was a provision of
the Constitution simply and completely un-
workable, because when you are dealing with public officials who are not named
salary-wise in the constitution, you just
cannot put in a restraint in these times of
inflation, for times yet to come when we
have no idea or knowledge of what condi-
tions will exist. It is a kind of unworkable
restraint.
Now, what happens while the legislature
is pondering over this gigantic budget bill?
The law provides that no appropriations
can be taken up while this gigantic item
is before the General Assembly. The law
provides nothing else can be passed, and do
you want to know one of the reasons for
the great log jam in the legislature? This
is, in part, one of the major reasons, be-
cause everything backs up behind it.
The present Constitution provides that
the legislature must pass the budget within
3 days before the expiration of its regular
session. If it does not the governor calls a
special session of the General Assembly
and they have to get it out of the way.
Well, they do, but in the course of doing it, the log jam is terrific, in the backing
up of the bills behind it.
The Eney Commission draft proposed
something totally different. We did not
adopt that recommendation. The Eney Com-
mission drafted a provision, the effect of
which was that when the budget was sub-
mitted, and they were going on the theory
that there would be a 70-day session of the
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General Assembly, the governor would sub-
mit the budget, the legislature would con-
sider it, but if at the end of 50 days it had
not been approved, then ipso facto by the
act of the calendar reaching those 50 days,
it became budget as he had originally in-
troduced it without any amendments.
We labored over this long and hard. We
had all of the members of the Legislative
Liaison Committee and the leaders of the
legislature come talk with us about it. We
could see that the end which they sought
was a good one, but the means we did not
think were going to work out, because just
by an examination of the program, you
could see that a strong governor could get
one house to play with the budget bill, and
I do not mean play in any venal sense, to
go over the budget bill while the other
house was ready to pass it. But if the two
did not, when that 51st day came, that
original budget would be in effect.
In addition to that, it really gave such
power to the governor, and deprived the
entire legislature of so much of what ought,
to be its power, that we looked for and
sought another way of carrying out what
had been the Maryland program for 50
years. In doing so, we adopted a provision
which we recommend, which is this: if the
budget is not approved by ten days before
the end of the session, then the governor
declares the legislature to have an ex-
tension. The greatest thing that happens
immediately is no other bill, no other legis-
lation of any kind can be considered. The
legislature has just got to get the budget
bill out. It stays in session until it does.
It must act. It just simply cannot sit still
for one very important and salutary rea-
son. No other piece of legislation of any
kind can pass either branch of the Gen-
eral Assembly.
And everybody who is knowledgeable in
the practical workings of the General As-
sembly feels that this is a much more
workable plan. It is like what we have with
the modifications that I have just described.
Now, the legislature used to mark time
with respect to all our appropriation bills,
because under the original provisions of the
constitution, they could not even consider
what we call money or appropriation bills
while the budget was going through the
General Assembly. And so you would wait
until five or four days before the end of the
session, and then whatever additional ap-
propriation bills had to be considered,
would be before the General Assembly.
And in those last five or six days, you
know there was not the same careful con-
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