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item shall be effective unless overridden by
a vote of three-fifths of all the members of
each house of the General Assembly within
ten days after action of the governor.
THE CHAIRMAN: Amendment No. 2
has been submitted by Delegate Hanson,
and it is seconded by a number of the
other sponsors.
The Chair recognizes Delegate Hanson
to speak to the amendment.
DELEGATE HANSON: Mr. Chairman,
this amendment, if adopted by this com-
mittee and ultimately by the Convention,
would bring Maryland's budgetary process
in line with modern state practices, and in
line with modern fiscal authority. It would
increase the power of the legislature in the
budgetary process.
Let me first explain why I believe it is
important that it be adopted, and secondly,
describe what specifically it would do.
Many people tend to consider budgeting
as primarily an exercise in finance, and it
is indeed an exercise in finance, but budget-
ing more than any other area, more than
any other single thing that comes before a
legislative body, is the pre-eminent state-
ment of public policy in a state. The budget
more than any act or any group of acts
passed by the General Assembly determines
the priorities which will be laid clown for
the conduct of the business of the state.
Going back into the most ancient times
in the development of parliamentary gov-
ernment and executive-legislative govern-
ment, the power of the purse has been a
legislative power. The power to determine
and set the priorities for the state has
been historically and ought to be in this
State a legislative power. It is a power in
which the governor participates by recom-
mending the priorities in a budget, and it is
the priorities established by the legislature
by appropriations.
This amendment would make the legis-
lature a constructive contributor to the
budgetary process. If one is examining a
budget, one cannot do a good job of it if
you can ask only half the questions, and
this is the position in which the Maryland
General Assembly finds itself today. It can
ask of the administration only, are you
doing too much, and it can predict with a
certainty that is the same in every session
that the answer to that question will be
in the negative.
But on no program can the General As-
sembly ask: are you doing enough? I sub-
mit that that question is at least as im-
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portant if we are going to meet the press-
ing public problems of this State as the
question: are you doing too much?
Now, there is good reason that the budget
not exceed the revenues available. There is
good reason to require a balanced budget
in State government. This amendment re-
quires a balanced budget. It would not per-
mit the General Assembly to increase the
budget beyond the estimate of revenues
submitted by the government. It would per-
mit the General Assembly, if it strikes out
a proposed appropriation for one area of
state government, to utilize that money in
the same bill for another area of state gov-
ernment which, in its judgment as an inde-
pendently elected arm of this state govern-
ment, it decides deserves greater support
than was given to the governor's budget
as proposed.
The governor and the General Assembly
are coordinate branches of the government.
The governor and the General Assembly
both have an obligation to the people of
this State to attempt to understand the
public interest and to act on the basis of
their understanding of the public interest.
No branch of government, neither the Gen-
eral Assembly nor the governor, is so om-
niscient that we should be willing to give
it not only the initiative, but really the
ultimate power in determining the priori-
ties which this State will follow in the
conduct of its business and in the conduct
of its government.
Under the present system and the sys-
tem as proposed in the report of the Com-
mittee, it would be conceivable, it would be
possible, it has occurred in other states,
and it could occur in this State, that the
governor would be hostile to a program
enacted by the legislature for what the
legislature felt was good and sufficient
cause, and signed into law by that or a
preceding governor. Yet the governor could
so reduce the budget of that program that
it would, for all practical purposes, be
dead, and the legislature, under the present
budgetary system, would not be able to
meet that kind of a problem.
I believe that we should retain both flexi-
bility and responsibility. If we then give, as
this amendment proposes, the General As-
sembly the power to increase a recom-
mendation of the governor within the es-
timates of revenues so that the budget re-
mains balanced, we who have introduced
this amendment believe we should give the
governor an according power to reduce or
veto any such increase, that he should do
it, and that the General Assembly should
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