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DELEGATE GALLAGHER: I would.
THE CHAIRMAN: For what purpose
does Delegate Carson rise?
DELEGATE CARSON: Point of per-
sonal privilege, Mr. Chairman.
THE CHAIRMAN: State the privilege.
DELEGATE CARSON: I would like the
Convention to recognize and have the Con-
vention meet my family. My dad and my
mother, my aunt, Miss Elizabeth Smith,
Mr. and Mrs. O. L. Carson, and my sister
and her husband who is on his way to
Vietnam.
(Applause.)
THE CHAIRMAN: We will pass over
further consideration of section 8 on page
3; I am sorry, section 7 on page 3, and
proceed to a consideration of section 8 on
page 4. Will the pages please distribute
Amendment A, "A" for "Able".
This will be Amendment No. 6. The Clerk
will read the amendment.
READING CLERK: Amendment No. 6
to Committee Recommendation GP-13 by
Delegates Boyer, Baumann, Hickman, Hos-
tetter, Johnson, Kahl, Linton, Malkus,
Mosner, Ritter, K. L. Robie, Rollins, Ro-
senstock, Rush, Rybczynski, M. H. Smith,
Vecera, Webb and Weidemeyer: On page
4, section 8, Redistricting, in line 5 strike
out the numerals "1970" and insert in lieu
thereof the numerals "1974".
THE CHAIRMAN: The amendment is
submitted by Delegate Boyer and seconded
by co-sponsors. The Chair recognizes Dele-
gate Boyer.
DELEGATE BOYER: Mr. Chairman
and ladies and gentlemen of the Committee
of the Whole for the past three and
three-fourths months, this Convention has
diligently applied itself, I think efficiently
and adequately, to the mammoth task, and
though I am sure that the constitution that
we have adopted and hammered out so far
probably does not appease or please every-
one, yet I think on the whole we have ham-
mered out an acceptable document. During
this time some of us have felt more keenly
about certain items than others.
Civil rights, labor, local government and
other problems have marched across this
stage and into the wings.
Though I have been interested in all that
we have had, I personally feel more keenly
about this particular problem.
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Amendment A before you is not a hard
problem to understand. It changes the ef-
fective date from November 1970 to No-
vember 1974 for the reapportioned General
Assembly. Let me tell you why I think this
should be adopted. The Supreme Court in
Lucas v. Rhodes decided on December 4,
1967, in an Ohio case, that, and I read from
the Washington Post of December G, in
that Ohio case there was a redistricting
problem in the conventional districts. The
State of Ohio had accepted some unofficial
figures for population distribution, and
these unofficial figures were from chambers
of commerce and other semi-quais, judicial,
legislative, or executive departments, but
the composite result before the Supreme
Court for decision was whether or not
these figures were official or unofficial.
In the Washington Post, it says that un-
official population statistics are, of course,
unreliable guides in determining the repre-
sentation of any area. And it further says,
"Since there is no acceptable way of meas-
uring the shifts until the 1970 census, all
redistricting efforts in the next two years
will leave much to be desired."
We would propose by this amendment
that rather than to act in haste and repent
in leisure, we should wait until the official
1970 census figures are available. It ap-
pears to me that you can only have two
sets of figures, either official which would
be the census, or unofficial, and I do not
see any other way that you can derive or
arrive at any other situation.
The Washington Post, and I quote again
from this Lucas v. Rhodes, says that state
officials had defended the legislature's de-
cision by saying that it had taken into
account population shifts after 1960, but
the unofficial statistics relied upon by the
lower court led to the conclusion that the
disparities would not be greater than those
which would result from a 1967 distribu-
tion based wholly on the 1960 census. It
was this conclusion that the Supreme Court
overturned. I read from The New York
Times a letter from the Attorney General
of the State of New York. Our sister state
up there is having exactly the same throes
of growing pains that we are. The State of
New York had exactly the same problem
before it, whether or not to use official
census figures or unofficial figures based on
something other than the census figures.
And the Attorney General for the State
of New York said, "The appeal which was
joined in by the principal officers of both
houses of the State Legislature was not
directed at circumventing the application
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