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DELEGATE MOSER: I am frank to
say I do not know whether you are asking
me four separate questions or what your
question is. If it is whether the eighth ex-
ception is to be exercised by an exemption,
the answer is no. It is not an exemption in
the true sense. If your question is, is that
to be exercised through public local laws,
the answer is in the present sense, yes. It
is a local enabling law which is treated as
a public local law today, but it is not a
positive public local law which says that
county "X" shall do this or that. It only
permits them to act, notwithstanding the
provisions of some public general law.
Does this serve to explain or confuse? I
should observe before getting back that I
have an amendment which will take off
that last exception. It really is not an
exception. It is a different arrangement
entirely and will read that the General
Assembly may empower a county and so
forth. It will not be listed as an exemption
from general law or whatever we end up
with after these amendments.
THE PRESIDENT: Your time has ex-
pired, Delegate Moser.
Delegate Key, to whom do you wish to
address your question?
DELEGATE KEY: Delegate Carson.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Carson,
would you take the floor to yield to a ques-
tion?
DELEGATE CARSON: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Key.
DELEGATE KEY: Delegate Carson, we
have heard a great deal in this session
about intent. I am wondering if the Gen-
eral Assembly did go so far as to adopt a
law naming twenty-two counties and ex-
empting two, if the intent could not be
thought to be to exempt two counties?
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Carson.
DELEGATE CARSON: Delegate Key,
obviously that would be the effect of it,
but Delegate Clagett has admitted on ques-
tion and answer that would be all right
as long as they did it by enumerating the
twenty-two counties and putting it in that
formalistic manner.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Key.
DELEGATE KEY: My question is not
the debate of Delegate Clagett, but how a
court would find this if this were presented
in that way since they would use the law
and not Delegate Clagett's debate. Would
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not the intent be exemption rather than
local law?
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Carson.
DELEGATE CARSON: Frankly, that
is one of the reasons why I strenuously
opposed Delegate Clagett's amendment be-
cause I think that irrespective of what \ve
say here tonight, I think the court might
eventually so hold, and I think that would
be quite dangerous. Any time that you
passed a law which would include more
than a majority of the counties, the court
could conceptionally say, by not including
the rest, it had exempted them and, there-
fore, it was invalid. I am afraid that
might be the legal effect of what we are
doing. Delegate Clagett says he does not
want that effect. Nevertheless, I am not
sure that the court will follow what we
said here tonight and listen to the debate
and follow Delegate Clagett's hope.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Raley, to
whom do you desire to address your ques-
tion?
DELEGATE RALEY: I do not know
who to ask the question to, but if I under-
stand what I think I understand, I want
to speak against the Carson motion.
THE PRESIDENT: You may speak.
DELEGATE RALEY: Mr. President
and members of this Convention, it is my
understanding that under the eighth ex-
emption in which local laws could be
passed, they would be passed by the Gen-
eral Assembly with a specific intent to ap-
ply to that specific county.
Now, without the Clagett amendment, it
would mean that this could be seriously
eroded away and statewide bills of state-
wide importance could then be exempted.
The very worst practices that do creep into,
for example, the field of pollution, where
there is a need for state-wide comprehen-
sive bills, because of some local interest,
then, in those areas, a specific county
could exempt itself because of some cer-
tain petty interests or special interests or
whatever that it might be, and I think that
it would be very, very bad, and I think that
the Clagett Amendment should stand.
TPIE PRESIDENT: Delegate Barrick.
DELEGATE BARRICK: Mr. President
and ladies and gentlemen of the conven-
tion, quite frankly I do not know what we
are arguing about here. It seems to me
that you can reach the same results by
adopting the Clagett Amendment that he
is trying to prevent.
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