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Proceedings and Debates of the 1967 Constitutional Convention
Volume 104, Volume 1, Debates 2356   View pdf image (33K)
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2356 CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF MARYLAND [Dec. 13]

lished by the executive. It exercises its own
legislative capacity to issue rules and exer-
cises its own judicial capacity by holding
hearings and then revoking permits, and it
literally defies you to try to stop them.

As far as the County Commissioner form
of government, there is a case of where
you have a legislative branch who enacts
their own legislation. They are the execu-
tive branch. They execute and catch up,
check up, on what they did themselves, and
I think you all know what has happened
to Maryland as a result of County Com-
missioner forms of government. It simply
is not sufficient to cope with it. I point out
the third thing that we came down here to
strengthen each branch of government, and
the only way that we are guaranteeing
that one of the branches becoming strong
will not try to consume the other branch
is to retain as a right of the citizens in
their Declaration of Rights that they shall
have a separation of powers between the
three branches.

THE CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for
the question?

Delegate Beatrice Miller.

DELEGATE B. MILLER: I have a
question, Mr. Chairman.

If we should defeat the amendment and
adopt the proposal, would it be possible to
combine it with GP-11 so there would not
be two statements?

THE CHAIRMAN: I do not believe it
would be possible for the Committee of the
Whole. It would be possible for the Com-
mittee on Style, Drafting and Arrangement
to combine any section that it thought
should be combined or to separate into two
sections any one section. I do not have
GP-11 well enough in mind.

Delegate Wheatley.

DELEGATE WHEATLEY: A question
on that.

As I understand it, before this vote is
taken, there will be no determination based
on LB-11 which, I feel, deals with a similar
subject and is based on this vote whether
it goes one way or another. It is under
separate debate schedule and deals with
essentially the same subject matter.

THE CHAIRMAN: The vote on this
section, even if this amendment were
adopted, would not preclude action on Com-
mittee Recommendation GP-11. This is ac-
tion by the Committee of the Whole and
not by the Convention.

Delegate Kiefer.

DELEGATE KIEFER: Mr. Chairman,
just one point very quickly. I am a little
bit disturbed about the statement of Dele-
gate Grant, though I favor his position and
will vote in opposition to this amendment.

I am speaking somewhat belatedly about
this section, but I do believe there are sev-
eral sections that are quite important. This
is one of them. This is a basic concept of
government.

However, the Committee, in its recom-
mendations kept this section separate from
what would go in Article 1, the Declaration
of Rights, because it believes this belongs
in the general provisions section as the
establishment of a governmental principle
and not as a part of the personal rights
section.

THE CHAIRMAN: The Chair is a little
disturbed about one thing that I do not
recall well enough to have any opinion. I
would like to address this inquiry jointly
or successively to Chairman Gallagher of
the Committee on the Legislative Branch
and Chairman Morgan, Committee on the
Executive Branch.

The Chair recalls that during delibera-
tions of each of those Committees there
was under consideration provisions which
would have involved crossing over between
the various branches of government. I do
not recall whether in the Legislative Branch
recommendations which we adopted, or in
the Executive Branch recommendation
which we adopted this was definitely con-
templated.

For instance, in the Legislative Branch
Committee there is a provision for redis-
tributing commissions and appointments by
the governor. Was it contemplated that the
governor might appoint to that committee,
which would be the legislative, a person
serving in the executive branch?

Delegate Gallagher.

DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Mr. Chair-
man, it was, and as long as the person is
not a popularly elected officer, there is no
objection to the governor appointing such
a person.

THE CHAIRMAN: But this provision
might prevent it? By this provision I mean
section 3.

DELEGATE GALLAGHER: It could be
argued, Mr. Chairman, that it might pre-
vent it, but I do not think with any success
because of the routine lack of recognition
of this doctrine in the past practices.



 

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Proceedings and Debates of the 1967 Constitutional Convention
Volume 104, Volume 1, Debates 2356   View pdf image (33K)
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