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fifteen minutes. How long is it going to
take the legislature to think up all the
exceptions that ought to be made?
It seems to me that this amendment is
turned around exactly wrong. We could en-
courage the public positively rather than
negatively. We could do it by statutory
action which would require public informa-
tion in a set of cases, and that is exactly
the approach that we have been making,
and that is exactly the approach we should
be making.
I am troubled by the evidence or the
statements of Delegate Willoner who says
that a governmental proceeding is re-
stricted to a judicial proceeding. This is a
rather silly kind of definition. There are
all manner of governmental proceedings
which are not judicial.
When you go into the voting booth and
cast your ballot you are concerned with a
governmental procedure. When a governor
has a conference with a legal advisor this
is a governmental proceeding. When there
is a conference of the judge with the law-
yers in a case, this is a governmental
proceeding.
Take the word "meeting". If the gover-
nor of the State and the mayor of the City
of Baltimore have a meeting with respect
to the enforcement of law and order, is this
a meeting which must be open to the pub-
lic?
When the governor calls in the acting
head of the militia to prepare for a threat-
ened riot, is it going to be necessary that
they give due notice that this meeting is
going to be held, and invite in the press
and thus make it quite clear what the pro-
cedure will be in avoiding the riot?
THE CHAIRMAN: You have one-quarter
minute.
DELEGATE WINSLOW: I am worried
about the word "record." Delegate Willoner
said that a letter would not be a finalized
record. I hope to heaven we keep this word
"finalized" out of the constitution, and for
that matter out of the law, but I would
submit that a letter from one official to an-
other may become a very important part of
the official record, and it would seem to me
it would be extremely undesirable that we
should write this kind of uncertainty and
indefinable provision into the constitution.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Willoner.
DELEGATE WILLONER: I yield three
minutes to Delegate Hostetter.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Hostetter.
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DELEGATE HOSTETTER: Mr. Chair-
man and members of the Committee of the
Whole. First of all I suppose I should ex-
plain why my name is not on this Minority
Report, and I wish Delegate Rybczynski
were here because I do wholeheartedly sup-
port this Minority Report, and perhaps my
name should appear there in parenthesis.
(Laughter.)
The reason that my name does not appear
there is simply this: there has been some
discussion among a number of delegates
outside of our Committee. I have talked to
them. There has been a feeling that perhaps
this was a personal sort of thing, everyone
in here knowing the type of business that I
am in, and this might be the sort of thing
that someone might try to put in the con-
stitution for a personal reason. For that
reason I requested that my support be
withdrawn from this provision at that time.
I do wholeheartedly support it, and I be-
lieve that there is no single factor that is
more important in our society today than a
freedom of information concept, an area
which is spelled out clearly and plainly to
prevent the bureaucratic form of govern-
ment which has been developing in this
country to withhold information from the
people with respect, particularly, to the way
its funds are expended and also from the
standpoint of the way its property is han-
dled.
This also goes down to the little zoning
board and the other administrative bodies
throughout the State which have assumed
the right to withhold such information as
they desire.
This was never intended to get into pri-
vate lives, to get into arrest records, for
example. Nothing that is not rightly at the
present time within the public domain, but
only those things which are within the pub-
lic domain.
I support this minority report. Thank you.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Kiefer.
DELEGATE KIEFER: In the interest of
saving time, I will reserve the rest of my
time until the proponents have finished
their report.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Willoner.
DELEGATE WILLONER: I yield three
minutes to Delegate Mitchell.
DELEGATE MITCHELL: Mr. Chairman
and fellow delegates. I think that an edi-
trial which appeared in the Washington
Post best expresses my position. In that
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