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DELEGATE WINSLOW: Thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Committee,
may I begin with an apology to all of those
delegates whose names do not appear at
the head of this proposed amendment.
This amendment was printed at an earlier
stage when it was supposed we would be
debating this matter ten days or so ago,
and those who have expressed agreement
with it since that date do not have their
names appearing here.
May I point out, secondly, that in the
list of names on the amendment is that of
Delegate James Clark. I point this out
especially because I was depending upon
Delegate Clark to present argument for
this, and the only thing that I can think to
do is ask the Chairman to stop the debate
for three minutes at some proper time and
let us listen to Delegate Clark by what-
ever device we have the possibility of
reaching him at the hospital.
A very brief word of explanation of the
amendment. As Delegate Boyer suggested,
there are three normal ways of proposing
constitutional amendments, two of them
which are to be found in the Committee
Report, and the third one which is being
here submitted.
This is a third method of proposing
amendments to those in the Committee Re-
port: three-fifths of both Houses or by con-
stitutional convention when held.
This amendment adds a third one to pro-
pose an amendment by popular action, by
a petition which shall require ten percent
of the voters at the last gubernatorial elec-
tion and demand a geographic spread so
that not more than one-fourth of those
signers may come from any one county,
leaving it to the General Assembly to fix
the details of petition and procedure.
This is the kind of constitutional initia-
tive which is to be found in one form or
another in 13 states. I am sorry to say
that I cannot give you the list of them,
because I loaned my material to one of
the research staff a few days ago. It has
not been returned, and I do not know
which one it was or where to find him.
Delegate E. J. Clarke has a list, so if
we need a list we can get at it. They do
include Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, North
Dakota. There are thirteen of them.
Now, the purpose of this amendment,
the purpose of the initiative for constitu-
tional amendments is that in extreme cases
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a change is possible, but notice that it is
only in extreme cases, for the provision
requires that there be ten percent of the
qualified voters.
When we were debating a general refer-
endum procedure earlier it was suggested
that a five percent referendum across the
State would make it almost impossible to
get a law referred to the people.
You will note I am making it twice as
difficult with ten percent. There is a total
of a possible 92,000 signers through the
1966 gubernatorial election.
Note also the amendment requires, with
respect to a geographic spread, that not
more than one-fourth of the signers may
come from any one county. This is also
twice as difficult for we have provided that
not more than half should come from one
county.
I suggest that under this provision,
neither the ultra-liberal people in Balti-
more County nor the ultra-conservative
people in Montgomery, or both of them
combined, could possibly produce enough
signers.
These two congenial groups would, of
necessity, get at least two more counties
to go along with them before they could
produce an amendment.
Now, the reason for this is stated rather
succinctly in an article which appeared in
a metropolitan newspaper not too far away
on Sunday morning last which reads:
"The difficulty of this method is inten-
tional. It is not desired by the sponsor
that frequent amendments should arise
by petition. On the contrary, it is their
intent that amendment by the petition
method should be most infrequent, and
occasioned only by the seeming impossi-
bility of getting the wanted change by
either of the other two methods. This
would be the shotgun behind the door.
Beside the petition, the geographical
spread required 'would avoid the danger
of its promiscuous use, but had such a
provision been in the 1867 Constitution it
would not have been necessary to wait
forty years for legislative reapportion-
ment."
I might add, further, that had this kind
of constitutional procedure been in the
1867 Constitution we would not have had
to wait until 1967 to get a Convention, for,
once the attorney general's opinion had
been expressed in 1930, it would have been
possible for the people of the State to
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