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of the time of the delegates, with the
result that this has interfered quite seri-
ously with the work of the Committee on
Style, Drafting and Arrangement, and
with the work in preparing the transitional
provisions and schedule of legislation. The
Style Committee is, as all of you know,
working every minute that the Convention
is not in session; but the work of that
committee is of such a character that what
they really need is two or three days of
uninterrupted time to review very carefully
each of the recommendations thus far ap-
proved by the Committee of the Whole.
As you know, you cannot have the recom-
mendations come before you on second
reading until the Committee on Style has
completed its review and has made its re-
port. This poses a problem which the of-
ficers and the Chairman of the Committee
on Calendar and Agenda have been con-
sidering, and we suggest this hopeful solu-
tion.
You now have before you on the agenda
practically every committee recommenda-
tion which needs to come before the Com-
mittee of the Whole.
We are very reluctant to have any kind
of recess for any purpose whatsoever un-
til the Committee of the Whole has com-
pleted all of its deliberations. At the same
time, we do not want to delay all con-
sideration on second reading until all the
work of the Committee of the Whole is
completed. As indicated Friday, we will
begin tomorrow to send before the Con-
vention recommendations of the Committee
on Style and second reading of some of the
recommendations already approved by the
Committee of the Whole.
In an effort to facilitate the work, we
will not schedule any recommendation or
report of the Committee on Style on the
second reading until the day after the
report has been read across the desk and
distributed. This should give you ample
time to read the report and consider what
changes the Committee on Style has made.
Also, it should give you ample time to con-
sider any amendments which you feel are
absolutely vital.
I would like to emphasize that the sec-
ond reading in the Convention is not a
time to rehash everything that has been
debated already in the Committee of the
Whole, and that debate should be very
limited. Hopefully, also, amendments would
be limited only to a very few matters re-
garded as absolutely crucial. It should not
be regarded as a time to review in detail
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everything accomplished in the Committee
of the Whole.
With this in mind, I would contemplate
that any person offering an amendment
would have it printed in advance so that
it could be circulated and made known to
all delegates.
The Committee on Calendar and Agenda
is considering whether or not to recom-
mend to the Convention some limitation of
the time to be spent in considering any
report of the Committee on Style. This will
be made known to you for your action in
advance of the consideration of any of
these recommendations on second reading.
If the amendments are printed in ad-
vance, and if debate is very severely
limited to perhaps the proponents of the
amendment and the committee chairman,
we should be able to move through the
second readers without any serious delay.
We would hope that consideration of the
Recommendations R&P-1 and R&P-2 and
Recommendations GP-3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and
11, and also consideration on second read-
ing of those recommendations which will
not likely require further debate could be
concluded by the end of the session on
Thursday of this week.
If we can accomplish this, we will have
finished substantially all of the work neces-
sary to be done by the Committee of the
Whole, and we would suggest that the Con-
vention recess until Tuesday of next week.
This recess will be for all except the dele-
gates on the Committee on Style and those
working on the transitional provisions and
schedule of legislation. Hopefully by work-
ing Friday, Saturday and Monday those
delegates could complete their work and
the Convention could return and complete
its second readers on Tuesday, Wednesday,
and Thursday of next week.
Now, this schedule can be accomplished
only if debate on the recommendations now
on the agenda is limited to meaningful de-
bate and such amendments as are offered
are debated and disposed of quickly.
We think that this is a realistic esti-
mate of the time necessary, and we would
very much hope that the Committee of the
Whole and the Convention can proceed in
accordance with that schedule. If it proves
impossible and by Thursday we have not
concluded, it would be the intent of the
officers to continue the Convention in ses-
sion until we do conclude all work of the
Committee of the Whole and second read-
ers, and not take a recess until at least
the 22nd of December.
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