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Has every other delegate voted ? Docs
any delegate desire to change his vote ?
(There, was no response.)
The Clerk will record the vote.
There being 113 votes in the affirmative
and 6 votes in the negative, the motion car-
ries. The second portion of the amendment
is adopted. All of Amendment No. 15 is
adopted.
The Chair would like to take this op-
portunity to recognize the presence in the
rear gallery of Dr. Richard Weigle, Presi-
dent of St. John's College, and ask this
Convention to join me in expressing to him
our sincere appreciation for the hospitality
that St. John's College has shown to our
boy pages. Thank you, Dr. Weigle.
(Applause.)
Are there any other amendments to sec-
tion 3.04?
Delegate Linton, you withdrew your
Amendment DD.
DELEGATE LINTON: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: The Chair under-
stands, Delegate Boyer, you will not offer
your amendment. The Chair has no other
amendments to section 3.04.
Delegate White.
DELEGATE WHITE: Mr. President,
members of the Convention, as we know,
yesterday was New Year's Day but you
also were not aware that yesterday was
Delegate Addie Key's birthday. Let's give
her a big hand.
(Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Weide-
meyer.
DELEGATE WEIDEMEYER: Mr. Presi-
dent, on a point of personal privilege I
want to welcome and have the Convention
welcome in the gallery two charming twin
school teachers of Anne Arundel County,
very active in the School Teachers' Asso-
ciation. I am sorry to say, Mr. President,
that they are too young and beautiful for
my twin brother and me to recognize but
I do want the Convention to recognize
them, Miss Joan and Miss Jean Pitzer.
(Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Is there any further
amendment to section 3.04 ?
(There was no response.)
If not, proceed to consideration of sec-
tion 3.14.
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The matter pending on section 3.14 is the
motion for reconsideration. The motion of
Delegate James, I think, was for reconsid-
eration of the vote by which Amendment
No. 10 was adopted. Amendment 10, which
has the letter "D", amends section 3.14 by
inserting in line 25 after the word "offi-
cers" the words "by secret ballot". You
should have that amendment before you.
Motion for reconsideration was made and
seconded. The Chair recognizes Delegate
James to speak to the motion.
DELEGATE JAMES: Mr. President and
fellow members, this is a just-can't-be
amendment, as we would call it.
(Laughter.)
Seriously, the simple fact of the matter
is that the General Assembly of Maryland
is a public body. The strength of any leg-
islative body is the fact that it operates in
a public manner. Everything it does with
very few exceptions are matters subject
to public scrutiny. Election of a presiding
officer is certainly a most important func-
tion of the members. The public is entitled
to know exactly how the membership votes
in the election of these officers.
Certainly the fact that a member wants
to avoid political consequences of voting
for one member over another of a legisla-
tive body in the organization should not
be a sufficient reason to deprive the public
of the knowledge of exactly how members
were elected, what the line-up was, who
voted for whom, and to make their judg-
ments accordingly.
In addition to that, if you can have pre-
siding officers elected by secret vote by con-
stitutional injunctive, certainly this is a
very bad precedent. It seems to me one
secret action leads to another and the trend
in the legislative body, and I am in favor
of this, is to lean away from any secret
proceedings to more open proceedings.
I believe in one instance at least we pro-
vide that, for instance, votes by which we
confirm officers should be by open vote.
This is now conducted in executive session.
This will be another step toward making
all proceedings ipublic. I certainly think this
Constitutional Convention will set a good
example by requiring as much of the pro-
ceedings as possible of the legislative bod-
ies to be open. You will recall that at the
beginning of this session there was high
indignation when there was the suggestion
we have a secret ballot in the organiza-
tion. There was a provision providing we
could have secret committee meetings at
the discretion of the Committee. I think
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