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Delegate Byrnes mentioned the interests
of the people. I think the interests of the
people are best served by the best candi-
dates possible. I object to a qualified per-
son who is thinking of running for local
office having to make up his mind partly
on the basis of whether the party he is in
is going to have a good year or not at the
top level, be it the state or presidential. I
think this should not be part of the de-
cision of a candidate to run for local office.
There is also the problem of finances, not
from the point of view of what it costs the
State, but from the point of view of what
it costs to be elected. If you are running
for office, you all know you need to get on
television, get in the papers, buy ads, and
all these things cost a great deal of money.
You also know that there is only so
much political money that can be raised at
one time. Obviously at the top of the ticket,
when you have an election at the state or
federal level, most of the money is being
contributed there. The candidate running
at the local level is hard put to find fi-
nances to finance his own campaign and
put himself across. Therefore, he is either
swept in with the top of the ticket, or a
good man loses because he is on the wrong
side of that election.
People have referred on this floor today
to the voluntary organizations and the in-
terest of being kind to them and not over-
working them. I am also interested in the
voters, and I know there is voter con-
fusion when there are several levels of
government on one ballot, and more names.
People are confused when there are two
districts for one election. So in the in-
terests of the voters also, I urge the
separation of these elections and the de-
feat of this amendment.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding):
Does anyone desire to speak for the amend-
ment?
The Chair recognizes Delegate Burdette.
DELEGATE BURDETTE: Mr. Chair-
man, I rise to speak for this amendment on
the principle that in many of the counties
throughout the State there is very great
doubt, especially in the metropolitan areas,
whether we could have a large turn-out in
a purely county election.
I support the amendment also because,
speaking entirely as a non-partisan, I be-
lieve in the building of the two-party sys-
tem in this State, and I believe in the prin-
ciple that we should expect county officials
who are successful in our State to become
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identified as candidates for higher level
positions in the State.
I believe it immensely important that
county officials be able to work closely with
state officials, and that there needs to be a
very great cooperative understanding at
this level. I think we attain these ends
most successfully by having them run to-
gether in a general discussion of state and
local issues.
There is also the issue of expense, which
I could regard as secondary but not in-
consequential. The proposal to have an
off-year election for local county officials
will involve very substantial expense to the
taxpayer with the very great risk that a
comparatively small number of the tax-
payers will turn out.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding):
Does anyone desire to speak against?
Delegate Boyce.
DELEGATE BOYCE: Mr. Chairman, I
was pleased that Delegate Gallagher saw
fit to have the Baltimore delegation meet.
Basically we have a physical impossi-
bility on our voting machines to combine
our elections either way. If we take the
questions of loads on the ballot in the gen-
eral election and put that with the ques-
tions of the State and then combine the
local offices with the state and federal of-
fices we literally cannot do it. We say to
you, as a result of this one thing, we do
think that the Baltimore City election
should be kept separate.
At the same time, none of us in Balti-
more City is in any way attempting to say
that such and such should be done in the
counties as far as their elections are con-
cerned. I was very much taken with what
my fellow district delegate, John Byrnes,
had to say. I really would have liked to
have voted with him, but it seems ap-
parent to me that if you want to make
sure that Baltimore City maintains the
odd-year election, then I think we are
going to have to vote against each of the
amendments as I see them coming to the
floor. Consequently I am asking that the
Baltimore City delegation be understand-
ing for this is something that the counties
may well wish to amend in some other
way.
As far as we are concerned, I would
like to see us, and I shall do so, vote with
the majority committee recommendation.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding):
The Chair recognizes Delegate Bard for
the amendment.
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