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Franklin Roosevelt? How about me, how
about my judgeship? Shorenstein looked at
him and said, have you ever been down on
the Staten Island ferry? He said, yes, sure.
He said, well, have you ever been on the
ferry boat when the ferry comes in to
dock? He said, yes, sure. He said, have you
ever noticed the suction that that boat
creates as it comes in? He said, sure. He
said, well, have you ever noticed that in
that suction as that ferry boat comes into
the dock all that garbage and trash that is
brought along in with the ferry boat? He
said, yes. He said, well, Franklin Roosevelt
is your ferry boat.
(Laughter.)
I would simply suggest that those that
would have us use the coattail effect are
looking for a ferry boat. That is the end
of my presentation. I will be open for any
questions at this time.
(First Vice-President James Clark a.s-
s limed the Chair.)
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding):
Delegate Mudd, do you have a question?
DELEGATE MUDD: Yes, Mr. Chair-
man. This section, Delegate Schloeder,
gives us a problem with reference to sec-
tion 5.21 of the judicial article wherein we
have provided for appointed judges to run
in the next general election following the
expiration of the two-year appointment.
We understand that in paragraph 1 of
section 7 you provide for an election every
two years. Do we correctly understand,
however, that paragraph 2, which provides
for the election of state officials, in the
year 1970, and each fourth year thereafter,
would prohibit judges from running for
election except each four years?
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding):
Delegate Schloeder.
DELEGATE SCHLOEDER: Chairman
Mudd, actually we discussed this and, as
you know, the Committee was not aware in
its deliberations and could not have been
aware of what the actual elective process
was going to be for the judicial officers.
Consequently, we were not able to take that
into consideration.
But there is no intent here in any way
to subvert the language in your article.
I think that we will admit, as we have
admitted privately, that there is a prob-
lem here. I think that we can get together
and work the problem out and I think the
Committee is certainly amenable to your
suggestion that it is easier to amend our
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article while it is here before us than it
would be to go back to your article and at-
tempt to change any language there.
We would be very happy to change any
language that would be consistent with
your purposes because we have no desire to
subvert your purposes at all.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding):
Delegate Mudd.
DELEGATE MUDD: I am quite sure it
was the sense of our Committee, or at least
the majority of our Committee, that this
appointive so-called probationary period
for judges should not exceed two years, or
I think, it could be as much as two years
and eleven months. Therefore, do I under-
stand your Committee is receptive to an
amendment that would permit these elec-
tions to be consistent with that thought of
our Committee?
DELEGATE SCHLOEDER: Yes, sir, in
the present Constitution in Article 17,
there is section 1 which reads, "All State
officers elected by qualified voters" setting
up the quadrennial elections. These are all
quadrennial elections. There is a paren-
thetical exception which might at this time
lead me to make some kind of comment
but I will not. The judges are in paren-
theses here, and I do not know if we want
to put the judges in parentheses. It might
get awfully crowded there, but we would
be happy, as you suggest to go along with
your intent.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding):
Delegate Mudd.
DELEGATE MUDD: The section to
which you refer has judges in parentheses
as to terms of office and not when they
might run for office, but we will take them
out of parentheses with your permission
and put them in the right section.
DELEGATE SCPILOEDER: No prob-
lem.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding):
Delegate Maurer.
DELEGATE MAURER: Could you
please tell me whether the Committee has
decided that all local officials should have
only four-year terms? As I understand it,
if they can run only every fourth year, it
almost amounts to four-year terms only, or
perhaps eight-year terms. But really in
realistic terms you can have only four-year
terms so that membership on certain
boards could not be staggered.
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