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theless the General Assembly cannot pass
a law which exempts one county. You can
have a local law which applies to twelve
and would meet the Clagett test, but on
the other hand you could have a law which
pertains to all counties and exempts twelve
and it does not meet the Clagett test. That
is confusing.
If you vote in favor of mine which is
merely a clarifying one, you make it clear
that in these areas the General Assembly
can treat any way it wants to these areas
and it can vary. As to whether you think
any one of these areas ought to be varied
and you want to change it, vote on that
later, but make it clear. My amendment
merely permits the General Assembly to
treat these areas any way it wants to.
Delegate Clagett's lang-uage merely con-
fuses the issue. I do not understand it
myself except that I know it confuses it
tremendously.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Clagett.
DELEGATE CLAGETT: Mr. President,
the best possible way to defeat something
which is very simple is to accuse it of being
complicated and say that you cannot under-
stand it. I sincerely tell you that I know
Delegate Carson does understand it.
I know that Delegate Moser does under-
stand it, but I can tell you that I honestly
do not understand Delegate Moser's opposi-
tion and I do not understand Delegate
Carson's.
Now, let us g-et down to what I said
before —
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Clagett,
Delegate Pullen would like to know if you
would yield to a question.
DELEGATE CLAGETT: I based my po-
sition and amendment upon a simple read-
ing of section 7.06 and the clear intent of
the clear language of 7.06, and I read it in
case you did not have it available. You
would hear that that made one limitation
and lifted that limitation, namely, the limi-
tation upon the General Assembly that it
should pass only public, general laws.
There are eight exceptions in 3.23. You
can pass local laws there, but you have got
to do it right. You cannot do it by the back
door.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Clagett, do
you yield to a question ?
DELEGATE CLAGETT: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Pullen,
Delegate Clagett has slightly more than a
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half minute. Can you make your question
brief and I will ask him to make his an-
swer equally brief.
DELEGATE PULLEN: I think maybe
I had better put the question in the form
of a statement. The very simple thing
that I want to clear up on this is: is your
intent in respect to substance different
from the intent of Mr. Carson, shorn of
all legalistic language ? What is the differ-
ence in intent between you and Mr.
Carson ?
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Clagett.
DELEGATE CLAGETT: Delegate Pul-
len, the simple difference is that the origi-
nal intention of the Local Government
Committee was that the two limitations,
limitation upon the General Assembly to
enact only public, general laws, and the
limitation that no general law should have
a county exempt from it, are by this amend-
ment both lifted insofar as the eight ex-
ceptions which appear in 3.23.
By my amendment the limitation upon
the General Assembly to pass general laws,
but that no county shall be exempt there-
from, is eliminated, and so my amend-
ment says that the General Assembly may
enact only public, general laws except that
in the eight areas listed it may enact local
laws.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Clagett,
your time has expired, but by the look on
Delegate Pullen's face the question has
not been answered. The Chair does not
have a limitation of time so I will endeavor
to give you the answer if I can.
The section at the present time in the
first several sentences has two limita-
tions or restrictions. One is that the Gen-
eral Assembly shall pass no local laws, but
shall pass only public general laws. The
second is that no county shall be exempt
from a public general law. In the latter
part of the section there are listed eight
groups of cases, situations.
Delegate Carson's amendment says that
the General Assembly is free to act in
those eight situations without regard to
either of the two limitations in the first
part of the section.
Delegate Clagett's amendment says that
the legislature is free to act in those eight
situations without regard to the first limi-
tation in the section, but subject to the
second limitation. In other words, under
Delegate Carson's amendment the legisla-
ture may act in the eight situations with-
out regard to the requirement that it en-
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