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I urge support for the amendment.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Gallagher,
you have about five and a quarter minutes
to allocate.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Mr. Presi-
dent, I yield two of those minutes to Dele-
gate Borom.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Borom.
DELEGATE BOROM: Mr. President,
and fellow delegates, I have heard refer-
ence quite frequently to the whole problem
of districting, and I would say as to those
who are concerned, that we have to get
involved in districting. I think you are
assuming that every time we have to re-
district that the representative is living on
the border line. Nine times out of ten he
is not on the border line.
We heard references to parochialism. I
think we ought to worry about his political
parochialism where we have multi-member
districts. We should be concerned about
getting quality, qualified members in the
General Assembly.
When the political machines decide noth-
ing is at stake, they give the voters in the
State a chance to elect quality representa-
tion. I make this allusion to those of you
who are here in ,the Constitutional Con-
vention. I would say in the main most of
you have no political gains. The voters
were given a chance to put in quality peo-
ple. We have passed on issues that the
General Assembly would not touch because
of prior commitments. If we go with sin-
gle-member districts we at least allow on
a smaller basis individuals to run who have
qualifications. If you go to single-member
districts, it does not mean that you are
not going to get qualified representatives.
THE PRESIDENT: You have one-quar-
ter minute.
DELEGATE BOROM: I would suggest
strongly to you that in order to prevent
power groups from funding and swaying
elections on a multi-member district basis,
you give the voters of this State an oppor-
tunity to have their own representatives
here.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Gallagher.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Mr. Presi-
dent, I yield two minutes to Delegate
Marion, and then the remainder of the time
to Delegate Gleason.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Marion.
DELEGATE MARION: Mr. President
and fellow delegates, Delegate Gallagher
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opened. He said he would not repeat some
of the same arguments which had been
made here, and made so well the last time
this issue was considered, and when single-
member districts were adopted by an over-
whelming vote of this Convention sitting in
a Committee of the Whole. But to me
those arguments are persuasive. The argu-
ment of visibility of the legislator is a
compelling reason for adopting in the con-
stitution a provision for single-member
districts. We can increase and lighten the
legislators' visibility to the people he rep-
resents by making him the one legislator
who represents one particular group of
people.
We did do that by assuring he is the
only person representing that particular
group of people. The same situation will
apply to the members of people collectively
across the State. Thirty-three thousand
people in every part of the State will elect
a single representative, and I think that if
we give them an opportunity to see best,
to see more clearly who their legislator is,
how he votes on issues which affect them,
and the State, that we can best leave it
to the judgment of the people who are rep-
resented there to make the decision —
THE PRESIDENT: You have one-half
minute.
DELEGATE MARION: —as to who they
should have representing them in the Gen-
eral Assembly.
I believe this is the fair system because
if we allow for a mixture of single- and
multiple-member districts where we need
multi-member districts the most, or multi-
member districts where we most need
single-member districts.
I think the fairest and best way to
achieve this is to defeat the amendment,
and to stick with the recommendation of
the Committee on the Legislative Branch,
and the Committee of the Whole, and sup-
port single-member districts.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Gleason,
you have one minute.
DELEGATE GLEASON: It seems to me
that the criteria on which this issue should
be judged would be which system will help
us to get the best qualified legislature that
we can get for the State of Maryland. If
there is any comment that is uniform in
nature that I have heard from old and
present members of the legislature, it is to
the effect .that fully thirty to forty percent
of the members who are sent down here
under the present system are just not quali-
fied enough for the job. These are their
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