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THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gallagher,
will you take the floor to yield to a question?
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Yes, sir.
THE CHAIRMAN : Delegate Marion.
DELEGATE MARION: The date on
3.17 (ab) is December 3, 1891. The note in
the copy of the Constitution of 1867 indi-
cates that that section 48 of Article III of
that constitution was amended by Chapter
195, of the Acts of 1890, ratified November
3, 1891.
I assume that was the date of the gen-
eral election. But rather than to have any-
one feel this might be an erroneous date,
the December date was the date it was
actually made effective by some further act.
Yes, the December date is the date of
certification by the governor.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gallagher,
could the Chair ask you a question that
might have some bearing on the Scanlan
amendment?
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Yes, sir.
THE CHAIRMAN: Perhaps your staff
advisor could listen to this question, be-
cause I am not sure whether you re-
searched it.
Is there doubt existing as to whether a
legislature may by a public general law
prohibit future legislatures from amending
corporate charters so that in the absence
of a provision such as that beginning on
line 35, it would be necessary for the legis-
lature to make such a provision with re-
spect to every corporate charter granted?
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Mr. Chair-
man, we have not researched the point, but
I do not believe that one General Assembly
could bind all future General Assemblies.
It would seem to me that a future General
Assembly could repeal or modify as it so
desired, and I believe in answer to one of
the questions during the question period, I
said that because of that position, if you
wanted to create this particular sentence
as a state policy, you could only do it in a
constitution. You could not rely upon the
General Assembly.
I presume you are now asking whether
or not you need a specific disclaimer every
year, every time there was a new General
Assembly.
THE CHAIRMAN: Or every time a cor-
porate charter was created by special act
if there were any such.
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DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Yes, sir,
that certainly would be a possibility. I do
not know how —
THE CHAIRMAN: This section for in-
stance, does not apply to banks.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: No, sir; it
specifically excludes it.
THE CHAIRMAN: It would be cor-
rected by special act, without the provi-
sions in line 35. In order to be safe, would
you have to include such a provision in
every bank charter thereafter granted?
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: In order to
be safe, I think I would recommend that.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Henderson.
DELEGATE HENDERSON: I want to
ask Chairman Gallagher a question:
I may be entirely wrong about this, but
I just had a notion that the date when an
amendment takes effect is the date when it
is voted on, rather than the date when it
is certified.
Am I wrong in that? It seems to me that
I have seen the note that it was ratified
on such and such a date by the vote of the
people. I just raise the point —
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: The reason
we used December third, was that that was
the date of the proclamation by the gov-
ernor of the results of the November 3
election.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Henderson,
is not the question usually resolved by the
act itself of submitting the amendment?
Does it not say it shall become active upon
ratification?
DELEGATE HENDERSON: I may be
wrong. I thought it was the vote of the
people rather than the date of certification.
We might have it researched.
THE CHAIRMAN: Is that not because
of the provision in the act of the General
Assembly submitting the amendment, that
it usually says it shall take effect upon the
ratification by the vote of the people?
DELEGATE HENDERSON: It may be.
It should be looked into.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: I sent for
the Act of 1890. I looked at it to see if
there were any prefatory language which
would help with the history of the section,
and I did not inquire into what the act
said about the effective date. It should be
here in a minute.
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