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I urge you to support the amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Schloeder.
DELEGATE SCHLOEDER: The Com-
mittee at this time would like to yield three
minutes to Delegate Clagett.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Clagett.
DELEGATE CLAGETT: Mr. Chairman,
ladies and gentlemen of the Committee of
the Whole: I concur with what has been
said by Delegate Needle and Delegate Win-
slow. I cannot disagree with what Delegate
Child said yesterday, that more voters turn
out at the larger elections than at the local
elections. But nevertheless, I think what we
are striving for here is not necessarily
numbers alone, but responsible people vot-
ing. We certainly have responsible people
voting for our election as delegates to this
Convention. We regret there were not
greater numbers, but nevertheless we can-
not but appreciate that the quality of those
voters was great and particularly as we
analyze it individually in our own indi-
vidual cases.
With respect, however, to what was said
by Delegate Hanson, I do not believe that
you can ever separate the inter-relationship
of local and state affairs. They are too
intertwined one with the other. However,
what we are striving for and what the
majority of the Committee now recom-
mends is not the separation of that inter-
relationship, but the separation and dis-
tinction of individuals who represent oppo-
site views, or if not opposite, at least at
different levels, local and State.
By this separation of date, we do have
an opportunity to identify the individuals
and to identify and separate the issues to
the extent they are susceptible of being
separated and identified.
In this period and time of exploding pop-
ulation and great change, the necessity for
identification and understanding of the dif-
ference in responsibility between the local
and the State and the national levels is
made all the more necessary. The whole
effort of the Local Government Committee
has been to separate the State and local
responsibilities and to require the State to
take care of its level of responsibility but
likewise to strengthen and enable the local
governments to meet and to take care of
their responsibilities.
We are now by section 7.03 requiring
that every county shall have its own in-
strument of government. What does that
mean? That means they will have to col-
lect —
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(Vice-President James Clark assumed the
Chair.)
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding):
You have 30 seconds.
DELEGATE CLAGETT: — from five to
fifteen individuals who will make up the
council of that county, as well as other
officials that will be elected by the county
having been separated from the constitu-
tional status they formerly had.
That means that we are going to have
to give attention to a ballot which will be
one where we will know who we are voting
for and why. You cannot do it, the last
election showed us, by confusion of names,
by number of names, the impossibility —
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding):
Your time is up.
DELEGATE CLAGETT: — of identi-
fication of individuals and what they stood
for.
I strongly urge that you support the Ma-
jority Recommendation in this instance.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
The Chair recognizes Delegate Byrnes. You
have three and a half minutes, sir.
DELEGATE BYRNES: I would like to
yield one and a half minutes to Delegate
Hodge Smith.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
The Chair recognizes Delegate Smith.
DELEGATE J. H. SMITH: Mr. Chair-
man and fellow delegates, I am in favor of
change if I thought any real thing would
be accomplished by it, but I do not think
any good will be accomplished by this. As
one of the Eastern Shore witnesses who
appeared before our Judicial Branch Com-
mittee put it so beautifully, I could put
hogs in my living room, and that would
be a change, but it would not necessarily
do any good.
For the reasons already given, I support
the amendment but there is an additional
reason which I think is very important.
That is, the cost of these elections. I have
figures for Montgomery County for the
1964 primary and general elections. The
cost to the County was $136,000. That was
in 1964. In 1966, the primary and general
elections cost us $166,000. The special elec-
tion for delegates to this Convention cost
$65,000.
Rose Dawson of the permanent Board of
Registry says it is to be expected that such
costs will increase with every election since
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