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Proceedings and Debates of the 1967 Constitutional Convention
Volume 104, Volume 1, Debates 3257   View pdf image (33K)
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[Jan. 4] DEBATES 3257

miserable situation which grows more in-
tolerable every year in the name of making
things nice and easy for those who want
to get ready to adjust themselves.

I submit to you that the adjustment
period has long since passed and that it is
time to give the people of Maryland ade-
quate apportionment, fair apportionment,
and we have already provided the method
of deviation, and the mean deviation we
have suggested is fifteen per cent.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, our Commit-
tee has made adequate inquiry into the
fact that the state planning department is
able to provide very accurate figures and
collect them by the year 1969. They are not
projections. They do not look forward. They
are actual counts carried on in a scientific
manner and have been demonstrated to be
accurate in many areas of the country and
in the State of Maryland as well.

Now, I have before me the case of
Rhodes v. Ohio, and I should like to tell
you what figures were used which were
struck down by the majority of the Su-
preme Court. They were figures provided
by the Ohio Department of Development.

I am reading from the two-judge ma-
jority opinion of the two-judge court, the
Citizens League for Cuyahoga County, and
the Columbia research staff.

The evidence does not disclose that any
information was supplied by any official
state agency which might have conducted
a statewide physical population census.
When the Supreme Court struck down the
acceptance of these consumer figures, it did
so without an opinion. Consequently, you
must look to the dissenting opinion which
indicates that the reason why the majority
found it unacceptable was because they
used unofficial figures, and I submit to you
that within the realm of both the two-
judge majority opinion, below, and the mi-
nority opinion as well, that it is perfectly
obvious that had Ohio used state official
figures it would have been acceptable de-
spite the fact that there was a thirty-one
per cent deviation in the aggregate.

I submit to you ladies and gentlemen
that we have before us an opportunity to
do substantial justice. We can obtain figures
in 1969 which will provide the counties of
this State, and the areas of this State, and
most particularly, the people of this State,
with the representation to which they are
entitled.

If we are to wait, if we are to let six
years go by, I submit to you that there is

a possibility that the gains which we have
gotten here in this particular Constitutional
Convention may be whittled away and that
there will be many opportunities to set
aside the hard-fought victories that we
have won.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a delaying
device. It is the death knell of the great
progress which we have afforded to the
people of the State of Maryland and I
urge you to defeat this stultifying and
deceit-laden amendment.

THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Raley.

DELEGATE RALEY: Mr. Chairman
and members of this Convention, after Mr.
Gallagher's eloquence I hated to get up
here, but I think we might say here, it is
not asking for much for the small counties.

I think you can remember that already
the urban areas have three quarters of the
control of the legislature. Just to wait a
few more years does not really make that
much difference to gain almost total and
complete control. It does mean something
to those small counties. It means an awful
lot. I just hope that you will think about
that. You have already got the power. You
have already got control. You can do any-
thing you want to do. This does mean
something to the small counties.

THE CHAIRMAN : Does any other dele-
gate desire to speak in opposition?

Delegate Henderson.

DELEGATE HENDERSON: I do not
want to make any oratorical speech on this
subject, but I do feel in my opinion it
would be very dangerous to delay for six
years in restricting the construction of a
new legislature.

I want to say this, as I read the deci-
sions of the courts, as I do from time to
time in this field, the lines are getting
drawn tighter and tighter and there is no
question in my mind that the present legis-
lation if attacked in the courts would be
held to violate the principle of one man
and one vote, and for that reason, among
others.

I also have read recently a good deal of
literature on the subject of the computer-
ized arrangements and the census tracts
and the modern methods that are being
used which according to some writers are
far superior to the federal business which
in one article I read said that a great many
people had been missed in the federal cen-
sus which probably might have shown up
in the census tract system of computations.



 

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Proceedings and Debates of the 1967 Constitutional Convention
Volume 104, Volume 1, Debates 3257   View pdf image (33K)
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