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Now, two other observations. The com-
mittee recommendation which you have be-
fore you now is, of course, important. It is
a part of our task. It is important that
the provisions be correct. It is not nearly
so important that we be concerned with
the niceties of language. I suggest to you
that it was entirely proper for us to spend
a great deal of time in debating "shall"
and "may" and whether the words ex-
pressed exactly the thought that we were
trying to express in the constitution itself
because we were drafing a document that
would stand for many years and would
have to cover situations that we could not
possibly foresee and think of. We had to
try to think of all situations. That is not
the situation with the schedule of tran-
sitional provisions or the schedule of legis-
lation. While the schedule of transitional
provisions cannot be changed or altered
by the legislature, they are all of a tem-
porary character so you are not concerned
with unknown situations that might arise
in the distant future. You are concerned
only with temporary situations that exist,
that you can foresee, that you can know
about, and that have an existence for a
period at most of three or four years.
I would therefore urge you not to take
time either in asking questions or in sug-
gesting changes that are purely stylistic
unless there is real doubt as to the mean-
ing. I do not think we need be concerned
with that in this schedule. It is a terrif-
ically long schedule. It is complicated. It
is imperative that you understand it. But
it is not necessary that we be so con-
cerned about the refinement of the language
as in the constitution itself.
This is even more true of the schedule
of legislation. Remember that the sched-
ule of legislation can be changed by the
legislature the next day and, in addition
to that, if there is even a grievous error in
the schedule of legislation it is not calami-
tous. The legislature can correct it.
We are trying to include in the schedule
of legislation only two categories of cases,
one where there are provisions in the
present constitution which, although in the
constitution, are really statutory in char-
acter and we have omitted them. The legis-
lature has not yet had an opportunity to
enact these provisions as statutes so we do
it for them temporarily.
The second category of cases occurs
where, because of provisions we have in-
serted in the new constitution, the legisla-
ture cannot act by legislation because of
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some prohibition for at least some period
of time. Now there are two illustrations
of this in the schedule. One is a provision
fixing the salary of the members of the
General Assembly. We have to put this in
the legislation because we have provided
in the constitution that the members of the
General Assembly shall fix their own sal-
aries, but have prohibited the members of
the legislature from changing salaries for
the term during which the salaries are
fixed.
Unless we put something in the sched-
ule, there will be no means by which the
salary can be fixed for the term of the
legislature in 1970.
Similarly, it is necessary that we put in
a provision fixing the governor's salary
for instance, because we have done two
things. We have taken out of the consti-
tution the provision fixing the governor's
salary so unless we put it in the consti-
tution, the governor would receive no
salary. Secondly, we have provided in the
constitution that the salary of the gover-
nor and other public officers cannot be in-
creased during their term of office, so that
we have effectively prevented the legis-
lature, if an increase were deemed proper
in the next three or four years, from
making that increase unless we do it.
Therefore, this kind of provision is es-
sential.
Please keep in mind that the enabling
act which defines the cases in which we are
authorized to adopt legislation provides
that we can adopt legislation which must
be adopted before the next session of the
legislature. It does not say before the next
regular session of the legislature, so that
you should not in considering the sched-
ule of legislation be considering whether
or not the legislature could act or should
act before January 1969. If the legislature
can act in May of 1968, then we have no
authority to act.
Now, if you will keep these principles in
mind I think that both the questioning and
the deliberation will proceed much more
rapidly.
At the suggestion of a number of dele-
gates, we will depart from our usual prac-
tice. Instead of having sections or articles
considered and then questions as to that,
we will have the presentation of the entire
schedule of the entire transitional pro-
visions and the entire schedule of legis-
lation before there are any questions. This
will give you a bird's eye picture of the
whole thing. The reason for this is that
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