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Now, the fall elections in 1970 will be
held for the new charter provisions in all
of the counties and under the old charter
provision under the old charters. It is very
important, if the various counties, Har-
ford, St. Mary's, and what have you, have
not adopted a charter of their own by July
1, 1970, under the procedure set out in
section 30 or some other procedure desig-
nated by the legislature. Then the legisla-
ture's model charter which they will pro-
vide by law will be their charter, so that
on July 1, 1970, every county will know
what its charter is going to look like. It
will either have adopted one or it will have
adopted the legislature's model charter so
that in the primaries in September of 1970
and in the general elections in November
of 1970, the persons running for elections
at that time will be running under the new
charters in all of the counties. In other
words, on January 1, 1971, all of the coun-
ties will have charters, all of the counties
will have charter governments in opera-
tion; and so the procedure in section 30
is just one procedure to permit them to
do 'that.
Section 31 is a provision for amending
charters that comes out of the present
Constitution. I stand corrected on section
31. This is a new provision with regard to
the amendment of charters, and it was
proposed and inserted here very recently.
At a matter of fact, inserted since I looked
at this last for amending instruments of
government, and it conies in through Dele-
gate Moser in the Committee on Local Gov-
ernment. I think it is self-explanatory,
though. It permits charter counties to
amend their charters. It is statutory, of
course.
Section 32 continues county commis-
sioners. The reason that we had to con-
tinue county commissioners by an express
section is that they were constitutional
officers and when we struck down the old
Constitution, we struck down the old county
commissioners and they had to be contin-
ued as legislative officers in the new frame-
work of government.
Section 33, is the same with regard to
county surveyors.
General Provisions. I think section 34 is
self-explanatory. It comes out of the old
Constitution.
Section 35 is what I was thinking of
actually, and you can see that it is quite
different. This comes out of the old Con-
stitution and continues as a procedure for
the amendment of the constitution until we
have the new constitution going into effect.
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Mr. Chairman, I think that is a very su-
perficial and a very skimpy explanation of
the whole thing. I hope it gives you some
perspective of what we are trying to do.
What you should do is to delve into it in
greater detail and with more specificity.
(A t this point, Second Vice-President
William James assumed the Chair.)
DELEGATE JAMES (presiding) : Be-
fore going into our question period, I
would like to recognize Delegate Winslow.
DELEGATE WINSLOW: Mr. President,
I should like to announce in the rear gal-
lery the presence of thirty-one students
from the Hampton Elementary School.
They are fifth graders who have made a
study of the constitution and I have asked
them to pass along any ideas they have as
to what we are doing. They are here with
their principal, Mrs. Robinson, and with
their parents.
Will you please give them your usual
welcome to these students who are so much
interested in what we are doing?
(Applause.)
DELEGATE JAMES (presiding) : Thank
you very much. We are very happy to have
you with us.
When Delegate Hardwicke is ready, we
will have our period of questioning.
Are there any questions for purpose of
clarification?
Mr. Rybczynski.
DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: Mr. Presi-
dent, shall I confine myself to the early
sections?
DELEGATE JAMES (presiding) : I
think you can make inquiry concerning any
section for which you seek clarification.
DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI : Delegate
Hardwicke, if you will refer yourself to
page 2, section 3, I still am not clear as to
why you have inserted the date of July 1,
1969, in view of your further explanation
last evening that it is possible that the
General Assembly will do nothing about
that section and that the courts will then
go on with an interpretation of what it
believes to be a correct interpretation of
the word "damages". Why do we need a
date?
DELEGATE HARDWICKE: The reason
is that we want to give the legislature an
opportunity to act. If we do not put this
deferred date in here, then this provision
with regard to damages will go into effect
without the legislature having had an op-
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