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legislative body by whatever name known,
and every municipal corporation of Mary-
land, including the City of Baltimore, shall
be public meetings and open to the public
at all times.
Nothing contained herein shall be con-
strued to prevent any such body from
holding an executive session from which
the public is excluded, but no ordinance,
rule or regulation shall be finally adopted
at such an executive session.
The same thing in another section of the
Code applies to county commissioners. The
same thing also applies to all of the execu-
tive branches of the government, and it
says "All meetings, regular and special, of
the boards or commissions in control of
any department, bureau or other agency
in the executive department of the govern-
ment of Maryland shall be public meetings
and open to the public at all times and
goes to exceptions, of course, for executive
sessions."
Nobody, not even the experts in Wash-
ington, wanted to say that the legislature
should not have executive sessions, or that
the officials of the state government could
not confer among themselves in private.
Some of this excitement is based on the
federal right to know act. In the federal
government it is an entirely different situa-
tion. There it applies only to the executive
branch, and there are a number of excep-
tions. The President has the right to elimi-
nate whatever he thinks may be detri-
mental, and we also heard of a number of
private areas where various information is
provided to the government for research
and for methods of future planning, which
if turned loose to the public would be in
effect a very serious breach of confidence.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think most of
you know how you want to vote on this
thing. I simply hope that you will adopt
the amendment that I suggest, because I
believe that it does reiterate the concept of
this body that the public does have a right
to know. But let us not open the floodgates.
I urge the adoption of this amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any delegate
desire to speak in opposition?
Are there any questions first of the spon-
sor of the amendment?
Delegate Beatrice Miller.
DELEGATE B. MILLER: Mr. Chair-
man, I am sorry, but I must pursue my
question. Chairman Kiefer has not an-
swered my question.
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How much consideration was given to
this substitute? It is the substitute of the
Committee which considered the language,
or is it an amendment as would be pre-
sented by Delegate Kiefer, or any other
delegate, and which we would consider in
that light?
DELEGATE KIEFER: I do not deny
the pattern of this. This is my idea. The
Committee adopted the concept of the right
to know, but I do not remember that any
specific language was completely spelled
out.
There was a lot of confusion about this,
because it was withdrawn by Delegate
Hostetter, but there were a number of ef-
forts made to write something into our
recommendations, and his particular one, as
a matter of fact, was originally introduced
to the Committee by Delegate Weidemeyer,
so we had a great deal of thought and a
great deal of conversation and a great deal
of debate and there was not any particular
language set forth.
The minority report so far as I know
was not adopted by this Committee as such
at any meeting, because at the request of
Delegate Hostetter the matter was dropped.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Miller.
DELEGATE B. MILLER: I am to take
it, then, that the minority report as signed
by the members is the result of their con-
sideration in Committee, and what they
understood they wanted, and the amend-
ment is one of the aspects of this which
you are presenting to the floor. Is this
correct?
THE CHAIRMAN : Delegate Kiefer.
DELEGATE KIEFER: Delegate Miller,
as far as I am concerned, it was a closed
meeting. I was not there. You will have
to ask them. I think they just went around
and got names.
Delegate Willoner will have to answer
that.
THE CHAIRMAN: Are there any other
questions of the sponsor?
Delegate Koger, do you have a question?
DELEGATE KOGER: I have a ques-
tion.
THE CHAIRMAN: State the question.
DELEGATE KOGER: This amendment,
would it leave it up to the legislature to
provide information such as statistical
records or expenditures and salaries? In
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