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sense that it is adopted by the people, just
as a law would be adopted by the people
on referendum, it nevertheless by its ex-
press terms is subject to alteration by the
General Assembly. The schedule of legis-
lation adopted on May 14, 1968, when the
constitution is adopted, could be changed
in every particular by the General As-
sembly on May 15, 1968, or any day there-
after. If it is not changed, it remains in
effect indefinitely just as does a law en-
acted by the General Assembly. In other
words, it has no termination. Some of its
provisions would expire simply because
they are couched in temporary language
and say, for instance, that until such and
such a day thus and so shall be the case.
The schedule of legislation ultimately
will be included in the Code of Public
General Laws as a part of the statute law
of the State, not as a part of the con-
stitution, so although it is adopted by the
same vote as the Constitution is adopted,
and although it is adopted by the people,
when it appears in the books, the official
publications of the State, it will not be
published with the constitution. Undoubt-
edly the publisher will have a footnote to
indicate where it will be, but the various
sections of the schedule of legislation will
be included in the Code at varying places,
wherever appropriate.
Now let me call to your attention one
other thing that I think it is imperative
that we have in mind. We are behind the
schedule that we set for ourselves in that
I had hoped that we would have concluded
consideration of the schedule of legislation
by last evening and that we would be in
recess today so that the Committee on
Style could be getting ready for our con-
sideration the corrected copies of the con-
stitution and have it ready for third read-
ing tomorrow. This obviously cannot be
done. This is not a matter that puts us in
a desperate situation. It means that in all
probability we will have a session on Sat-
urday. I hope that it will not be necessary
to have one Sunday, but it will be im-
perative that we continue without any
days of recess until we reach the final vote.
This presents a number of mechanical
difficulties. We are doing everything we
can to overcome them. One of them is to
get a complete copy of the draft consti-
tution as adopted on the second reading
and obviously it would be very helpful to
have that in front of you right at this
moment while you are considering this
schedule.
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There has been completed by the staff an
entire draft of the constitution and at this
moment — as a matter of fact, since 8
o'clock this morning — a large group of
people on the staff have been working to
get on the typewriter a revised copy of the
constitution as adopted on scheduling and
showing the changes made on second read-
ing.
We could have given you a little more
quickly a clean copy that did not show the
change. It seemed to me that the delegates,
in order to know just what they were doing
and because of the tremendous volume of
work that we have been accomplishing in
the past few days in speed, would like a
chance to see in black and white what we
did on second reading. This means a great
deal of delay in preparing the typewritten
copy because in order to type in language
which was stricken out and then strike it
out and then type in in italics the new
language, this necessarily slows down the
stenographer enormously, but in addition
it means the task of proofreading is great-
ly increased. This work is proceeding. A
battery of stenographers are at this mo-
ment typing it. Just as soon as they have
concluded any article and it can be sent to
a print shop, this will be done. I suspect
sometime this morning it will be dis-
tributed and on your desk, the first in-
stallment, the first article, and we are
trying to run them in the order of articles
so that you will have them in front of
you.
There is a cautionary sheet, and I ask
you please to observe that the sheet calls
attention to the fact that this is a pre-
liminary draft, not preliminary in the
sense of action by the Convention, but
preliminary in the sense that it represents
action by the staff, that they are not satis-
fied as being thoroughly and completely
checked. It is therefore not for publica-
tion. I do not mean for that that it is
secret. I mean by that I would not want
some weekly newspaper, for instance, that
is not in daily touch with us to receive a
copy of this and publish it as a draft of
the constitution. It is inevitable that there
are errors. It takes careful checking and
verifying the action on second reading to
pick up the modifications that are made
orally, the amendments, as I am sure all of
you understand, a really tremendous job.
It is time-consuming, it is slow work, so
please regard what you will receive this
morning as not being error-free. I think it
sufficiently accurate to give you a pretty
clear picture of what has been done.
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