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and that is adopted it would not be neces-
sary to submit Amendment J.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
Pages will please distribute Amendment
I, I for Item.
This will be Amendment No. 7.
Will the Clerk read the amendment?
READING CLERK: Amendment No. 7
to Committee Recommendations GP-7, GP-
8, GP-9, GP-12, R&P-1, and LB-3 as
amended by Style Committee Report S&D-
17 by Delegates Johnson, Della, Dorsey,
Dukes, Hostetter, Jett, Kahl, Rush, Sie-
wierski, Soul, Rybczynski, Stern, Sybert,
H. Taylor, and Weidemeyer: On page 2
section 10.03, Constitutional Convention, in
line 18 strike out the words "by law" and
in the same line after the word "may" in-
sert the following:
"enacted by the affirmative vote of three-
fifths of all the members of each house,".
THE PRESIDENT: The amendment is
submitted by Delegate Johnson and sec-
onded by co-sponsors.
The Chair recognizes Delegate Johnson.
DELEGATE JOHNSON: Mr. President
and ladies and gentlemen of the Conven-
tion, the only purpose for this amendment
is to require a three-fifths affirmative vote
by the General Assembly prior to calling
a constitutional convention on its own ac-
cord. The only reason that the words "by
law" were deleted was because of the fact
that the drafting department felt that it
was unnecessary inasmuch as that was the
only way that the General Assembly may
act. However, the Committee on Style de-
cided to insert those words, and if it is
consistent with their other actions it is of
no consequence.
I ask that the delegates place before
them section 10.03 of page 2 of the Style
and Drafting Report before us because it is
my opinion that we had not discussed this
matter in detail before. You will note that
10.03 now reads that the General Assembly
alone consequently only by majority action
may call a constitutional convention with-
out the requirement of putting it on ref-
erendum and without the requirement that
the people of the State act upon it.
We feel that this is an unfortunate pro-
vision. I direct your attention to section
10.02, on page 1, the preceding section
which you will note requires a three-fifths
affirmative vote of the General Assembly
in order to adopt an amendment to the
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constitution. This same section also pro-
vides that only an affirmative vote of a
majority of all the members of the consti-
tutional convention is required in order to
write either a new section or an entirely
new constitution.
We submit that it would be a mistake to
permit the General Assembly on a ma-
jority vote only to call a constitutional
convention and together with that have the
constitutional convention on a majority
vote only write an entirely new constitution.
I asked the research department to look
into this matter for us and their research
has indicated that fifteen states while per-
mitting their legislature to call a constitu-
tional convention require that it be placed
on referendum. Now, of the fifteen States
we have such states as Michigan, Missouri,
New Hampshire, New York, etc.
In addition to that, there are twenty-one
states that require not only a two-third
vote of the legislature prior to having a
constitutional convention, but in addition
to that a referendum also, and those states
include California, Florida, Maine, North
Carolina, Oregon, etc. So that thirty-six
states and the United States require some-
thing more than a majority of the general
assembly acting alone to call a constitu-
tional convention.
We feel that this amendment before you
is a minimum type amendment and we urge
that this Convention require that if the
legislature or the General Assembly, I
should say, is going to have the authority
to call a constitutional convention that it
be required to do so by three-fifths action.
Now, on the basis of the recommended
house and senate, the 160-member General
Assembly, you will note that in the House
a majority is only sixty-one and the three-
fifths vote that we recommend, although
not a great deal higher as a minimum,
will require seventy-two votes.
THE PRESIDENT: You have one half
minute.
DELEGATE JOHNSON: In the pro-
posed Senate a majority would be twenty-
one. Three-fifths would be twenty-four and
we submit that this is a minimum so this
amendment would require the affirmative
vote of both houses of ninety-six votes
rather than under the original language
eighty-two.
If this particular amendment is adopted,
it will not, in my opinion, be necessary to
call forth Amendment J which would or-
dinarily require a referendum on each con-
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