THE PRESIDENT: Has every delegate
voted? Does any delegate desire to change
his vote?
(There was no response.)
If not, the Clerk will record the vote.
There being 136 votes in the affirmative
and none in the negative, the motion carries.
The rules are suspended.
The first item is the Sixth Report of the
Committee on Rules. Credentials and Con-
vention Budget. This is the report which
was heretofore read and referred to the
Committee on Calendar and Agenda yester-
day, October 2. It has to do with Resolution
No. 4, which was offered on September 22.
You should have copies, both of the Sixth
Report and of the resolution. The Chair
recognizes Delegate Scanlan, Chairman of
the Committee. Will you come forward,
please, sir?
DELEGATE SCANLAN: Mr. President,
fellow delegates, I have the honor to pre-
sent the Sixth Report of the Committee on
Rules, Credentials and Convention Budget,
which deals with Resolution No. 4, intro-
duced in this body on September 22. The
recommendation of your committee is that
Resolution No. 4 not be adopted by the
Convention.
As originally drafted, Resolution No. 4
would require that with respect to each
delegate proposal and substantive commit-
tee recommendation regarding the fiscal
program that these be accompanied by a
memorandum setting forth the monetary
budget required by the fiscal program, and
if a similar program now exists, a com-
parative cost study of the proposed pro-
gram with the program now in existence.
The sponsor of Resolution No. 4 appeared
before the Committee on Rules to explain
his proposal, and in his appearance modi-
fied it to propose that the fiscal note
required under his resolution be only ap-
plicable to substantive committee recom-
mendations and not applicable to delegate
proposals.
The Committee believes that the resolu-
tion should be rejected, both in its original
and amended form. Apparently a fiscal
note procedure has been tried in recent
years in the Maryland General Assembly,
without any considerable success, but
whether it was successful there or not, the
Maryland General Assembly is a legislative
body. It is not a Constitutional Convention.
It seems to our Committee that it is of the
essence of a successful Constitutional Con-
vention that the flow of ideas emanating |
from the delegates not be arbitrarily re-
stricted and cut off. If you were to require
a fiscal note with respect to each delegate
proposal or even with respect to each com-
mittee proposal, you would be putting an
undue burden, not only on the delegates
and the Committee members, but also on
the officials of the State, especially in the
Fiscal Research Bureau, who would be in-
undated with requests to provide fiscal in-
formation required. Moreover, there is al-
ways the difficulty of knowing in a particu-
lar case whether or not it was the type of a
recommendation that would require a fiscal
note. Consider, for example, the whole Bill
of Rights section. Can the effect of those
provisions, whatever they ultimately may
be, be evaluated in financial terms? Most
of us think not.
In recommending the rejection of this
resolution, we do agree that the fiscal note
procedure perhaps could be in connection
with some financial committee reports,
especially the Committee on State Finance
and Taxation. It might well be that the
members of that committee and its chair-
man might think that in a particular case
a proposed recommendation would be more
convincing or more understandable on the
part of the delegates if it were accompanied
by a fiscal note. In such a case we would
urge that they use a fiscal note. However,
even here we did not think it a subject
which should be enshrined in the rules as
a rigid requirement. We would leave it to
the good judgment of the various commit-
tees as to whether or not in a particular
case a fiscal note should accompany the
committee recommendation.
On these grounds, therefore, the Rules
Committee recommends that the resolution
not be adopted, either in its original form,
or as amended by its sponsor in his appear-
ance before the Committee.
THE PRESIDENT: The question is on
the adoption of Resolution No. 4, notwith-
standing the contrary recommendation of
the Committee. Is there any discussion?
(There was no response.)
Are you ready for the question?
(Call for the question.)
A vote Aye is a vote in favor of the
adoption of Resolution No. 4. A vote No is
a vote against the adoption of Resolution
No. 4. A vote No, in other words, is an
approval of the Committee's recommenda-
tion. We, perhaps, should take a roll call
vote.
(Whereupon a roll call vote was taken.) |
