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But it seems to me that what has hap-
pened is that we now in our elections tend
to confuse local and state or national poli-
cies. We do not have any political party,
program or platform for local affairs. In-
stead, we are called upon to elect our
county officials along with our state offi-
cials and the only program which is pre-
sented to us in elections is on state ques-
tions, questions of state bond issues or
questions of state road policies, but with
no attention paid to what is going on or
what has been going on in the counties. Or,
we elect our county officials because there
is a man of some glamor running for the
position of governor or U. S. Senator or
U. S. Representatives. It is time I think we
divorced local affairs of this nature from
the state party political programs and put
the local governments, local units, and
local people strictly on their own in con-
sonance with their power.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Byrnes.
DELEGATE BYRNES: Mr. Chairman,
what is my time residue?
THE CHAIRMAN: I think you have
about eight minutes.
DELEGATE BYRNES: I would like to
yield four minutes, if I may, to Delegate
Hanson.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Hanson.
DELEGATE HANSON: Mr. Chairman,
I think it is very important that the amend-
ment offered by Delegate Byrnes be adopted
by this Committee of the Whole. He and
others who have spoken have already
pointed out the importance to turn-out of
combined elections. Let me emphasize an-
other aspect of the turn-out problem. That
is, that as turn-out as a gross number of
voters declines, the declines is greatest
among the voters of the lowest income and
the lowest on the social economic scale. This
means that separate county elections hurt
most the lowest income people in our com-
munities. They are inclined to participate
the least in these elections.
Secondly, I should like to point out that
if we are going to solve the problems of
this State and the communities in this
State, we need the cooperative and inte-
grated action of the state government and
the local governments. We do need to make
local governments strong and responsive,
and we do need to make state government
strong and responsive. But an important
part of the political process in this or in
any state is to so structure the political
process that state officials have to consider
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in their politics local problems and to so
structure the government and the political
system that local officials must take into
account state considerations when they run
for office.
It would be a tragic mistake to freeze
into the constitution an isolation of local
politics from state politics. Politics is not
something that can be neatly subdivided by
geographic boundaries so as to say that
this is local, and this is state. This is par-
ticularly true when we deal with the prob-
lems of our burgeoning suburbs, conserva-
tion problems, natural resource problems,
and human resource problems. We need the
coordinated political action of officials at
both the local and the state level of gov-
ernment.
This, I think, is a most important aspect
of the present political system in Maryland.
The present political system in Maryland
has considerable advantage over a system
which says we will just vote on local ques-
tions this year, and we will not pay any
attention to state questions and next year
we will just vote on state questions and
we will not pay any attention to local
questions.
I have enough faith in the electorate of
this State that they can distinguish candi-
dates for local and state office. I ran twice
in campaigns in which we combined either
state and federal officials or local and fed-
eral officials and to my immense chagrin,
the people in my county have been able to
distinguish between these levels of office.
While I may feel that I have unjustly
suffered by the system, I believe the system
is nonetheless correct. I think we should
maintain it because I think it brings to-
gether those things which ought to be to-
gether in a government.
THE CHAIRMAN: You have one-half
minute, Delegate Hanson.
DELEGATE HANSON: I think that
this Committee of the Whole should very
carefully consider this proposition. For us
to favor the Recommendation of the Com-
mittee is to encourage a disintegration of
the political system of the State. For us to
favor the motion of the minority of the
Committee is for us to encourage to the
highest extent possible consistent with the
political traditions and practice of this
State a close working relationship between
State and local government. This relation-
ship is, I believe, fundamental and essen-
tial to the solution of the problems of both
the State and the localities.
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