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THE PRESIDENT: Amendment No. 16A
is offered as a substitute to 16 by Delegate
Clagett.
Is there a second?
(Whereupon, the amendment was duly
seconded.)
THE PRESIDENT: The amendment
having been seconded, the Chair recog-
nizes Delegate Clagett.
DELEGATE CLAGETT: Mr. Chairman,
a moment ago I stated that when section
7.06 came before this body sitting as a
Committee of the Whole, it contained two
limitations upon action by the General
Assembly; one was a limitation that the
General Assembly should act only by gen-
eral law with certain exceptions, and one
was a limitation that any public general
law would not permit a county to be
exempted from it. Those are the two
limitations.
Now, I propose to read section 7.06 in
order that you will be able to judge for
yourself that that section provided for the
exceptions dealing with the areas of in-
strumentalities of the State, appropria-
tions, etc., to apply only to the restriction
or limitation with respect to the enact-
ment of general laws.
This is the way section 7.06 read: "Ex-
cept as otherwise provided in this consti-
tution and except with respect to appro-
priations and laws providing for and regu-
lating the power of departments, agencies,
or instrumentalities of the State perform-
ing a state and not a local function, the
General Assembly shall enact no public
local laws and shall enact only public gen-
eral laws which are defined as laws which
in their terms and effect apply throughout
the State. The General Assembly may
nevertheless enable any county or counties
to exercise any power or perform any func-
tion denied to other counties subject to
such standards as the General Assembly
may prescribe. No county shall be exempt
from general law."
Now, it is that limitation upon the Gen-
eral Assembly, that no county shall be ex-
empt from a public general law, which I
wish to see included in the present sec-
tion 3.23.
When I first started work back in 1965
as Chairman of the Local Government of
the Constitutional Convention Commission,
our study of the practices in the General
Assembly, particularly those dealing with
the practice of exempting from a general
law a county or counties, we found that
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was a method of trading back and forth
identified as backscratching and log rolling.
At that time the decision was made that
there would be a specific limitation with re-
spect to the continuance of that practice.
That decision of the Local Government
Committee of the Constitutional Conven-
tion Commission was endorsed by the Com-
mission itself, and if you have carefully
read your local government article you
will find that therein contained is a speci-
fic prohibition or limitation upon the Gen-
eral Assembly that when it passes a
general law no county shall be exempt
therefrom.
That carried into the consideration of
the Committee on the Local Government.
As the recommendation of that Committee
came forward to this body and was con-
sidered when we sat as a Committee of
the Whole, we endorsed the principle that
that limitation was to be continued in the
constitution, and specifically that when the
General Assembly passed a general law,
no county was to be exempt therefrom.
Now, a careful reading of the deleted
language in section 3.23 will bear me out
along that basis. However, after the Style
Committee deleted the language, we wrote
the language, and then wrote into this
section the following: "The General Assem-
bly shall enact no public laws except gen-
eral laws which in their terms and effects
apply throughout the State. No county
shall be exempt from a public general law."
Up to that point it is in conformity with
the intent of the Committee as expressed in
7.06, but here is where the difference is.
It says, "The General Assembly shall have
the power notwithstanding the limitations
imposed by this section to enact laws", and
then sets forth the eight exceptions where-
in the General Assembly has lifted from it
the limitation with respect to passing only
general laws and is allowed to pass a local
law, but in the plural, in the word limi-
tations. Likewise the General Assembly has
lifted from it the limitation with respect to
that when it passes a general law that
counties may not be exempt from it.
THE PRESIDENT: You have a little
less than one minute, Delegate Clagett.
DELEGATE CLAGETT: Therefore, my
language as suggested in the Amendment
No. 16A restores the original meaning
of the Committee and that language, I
submit to you, is clear and very similar
to that suggested in 16-A except that
it clearly spells out that there is only
one limitation that is being lifted from the
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