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the State which perform a State and not
a local function."
Would this not also provide sufficient
leeway for any variation in statewide ap-
plication of laws? The inclusion of edu-
cation as an exception to the general ap-
plication of laws is a very substantive and
far-reaching change from previous actions
of the Local Government Committee and
the Committee of the Whole. It was not in
the original proposal of the Local Govern-
ment Committee.
The previous colloquies between Dele-
gates Moser, Lord, and others dealt with
the ability of the General Assembly to
permit counties to vary the structures of
their school board and local school admin-
istrations. It did not deal with local public
laws of the old Maryland tradition. Dele-
gate Moser was just quoted on December
28 in the Evening Sun as saying that since
colonial times local governments in Mary-
land have operated on a tight rein exer-
cising only those powers expressly granted
by the State. The local government article
reverses this. The counties would command
their own local destinies. No longer would
they have the local assemblymen handle a
great volume of their business.
Delegate Moser said the percentage of
local laws were somewhere around 52 per-
cent. If we keep adding exceptions, we will
be right back where we started and the
General Assembly will be just as much in-
volved with local legislation as it ever was.
The exceptions recommended by the Local
Government Committee dealt primarily
with geographically limited items such as
the creation of multi-county governments,
alteration of county boundaries, and ap-
propriations.
The entire thrust of the local govern-
ment article has been to break the deep-
seated custom of local legislation and free
the General Assembly to concentrate on
statewide matters. If education is truly a
statewide function, as has been so well
and ardently argued, let us treat it as such
and not relegate it to the continued tradi-
tion of public local laws.
I urge you to support this amendment.
Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Moser.
DELEGATE MOSER: Mr. President
and ladies and gentlemen, again I rise as
an individual and not as a Committee
Chairman or on behalf of the Committee
itself.
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What I said earlier about natural re-
sources I think applies with somewhat
greater force to the field of public educa-
tion. As near as I can determine in each
of 1966 and 1967 there were three local
laws pertaining to education passed by the
General Assembly. If you look in Article
77, the only local laws that are passed per-
taining to education of the kind that thin
would permit, this exception would permit,
the only kind that in fact the legislature
really does pass are those relating to school
boards and what they do. They will say
Somerset County may have a five-man
school board, some other county may have
a seven-man school board and the terms of
office and so on vary.
Now, Delegate Freedlander has aptly
stated what the situation would be if this
provision comes out, that is to say that tlic
General Assembly would have to act uni-
formly with respect to local school boards
and any other aspect of public education,
but that they could pass a law which would
empower a county to provide its own local
variations. The problem with this is that
it requires the county government to act,
whereas this exception would allow the
General Assembly to act and to make the
variations.
My understanding of what the General
Provisions Committee as a unit, both the
majority and minority, intended with re-
spect to the so-called compromise that they
arrived at was that Article 77 could be
continued just exactly as it is. I think that
in order to do that, one much have this
exception in section 3.23 as it is proposed.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other
delegate desire to speak in favor?
Delegate Mentzer.
DELEGATE MENTZER: I wish to sup-
port this amendment, Mr. President. The
intent of the Style Committee was not to
place its stamp of approval on the items
relating to national resources and educa-
tion but rather to call it to the attention
of the Convention because of the discus-
sions that arose over the words "by law,
general, or otherwise" when these were
discussed earlier.
The General Assembly in the areas of
natural resources and education will often
be enacting minimum laws, and local gov-
ernment under the "shared powers" con-
cept would be free to pass more restrictive
or more liberal laws as long as they were
not in conflict with the statewide laws.
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