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of Article 23A provides that an amendment
of a municipal charter may be initiated by
the legislative body of a municipal cor-
poration, or by petition of qualified voters
of a municipal corporation.
Then the Code goes on to spell out at
great length the procedure. This is abso-
lutely unnecessary. It is completely incon-
sistent with what we have done here this
evening, and I urge you to defeat this
amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Barrick.
DELEGATE BARRICK: Mr. Chairman,
it seems to me that Delegate Hardwicke
has missed the point. It is true that it in
in Article 23A of the Code, but that is only
the procedure, and the authority in is Ar-
ticle XI-E (3) of the Constitution.
Now, I think the Transitory Committee
did a wonderful job, but it was very clear
in the draft that was submitted for the
schedule of legislation of local government
that the municipalities would have the
power to amend their charters. That vote,
as the Chairman knows, and was men-
tioned a while ago, was 15 to 0. When they
take our provisions out of local govern-
ment and completely ignore them, it seems
to me that is going a little too far. There
has been no reason expressed here that I
have heard, for not putting this in, other
than that it would be some extra language
in the schedule.
I submit that if we vote against this
you will be voting against the complete will
of the Local Government Committee, and
do an injustice to this particular section.
THE CHAIRMAN: The Chair would like
to comment that this very extensive dis-
cussion has done little to clarify the issue,
and I think has caused a great deal of
confusion. At the risk of taking a few
more moments, I would like to direct a few
questions to Delegate Carson, and I say
Delegate Carson because he indicated that
he undertook to talk to the Municipal
League, and in a sense represents some of
the views of at least one of the committees.
I think all of us must keep in mind in
the background for these questions that
what Delegate Hardwicke commented upon
is absolutely true. We are not authorized
under the enabling act to include in the
schedule of legislation matters which we
would like to see there, or which we think
ought to be there. We are limited to two
categories of matters in the present Con-
stitution, which we have eliminated from
the Constitution, and which must, not
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should or ought, but which must be con-
tinued because there is not time for the
legislature to act; and, secondly, matters
which require legislation before the legis-
lature can act, because of the provision
which we had included in the constitu-
tion, in the new constitution.
In the light of those two premises, and
in the light of Delegate Grant's statement
that this provision, section 33 (b) ^is not
intended to grant to the municipalities any
powers they do not have, and in the light
of the provisions of section 7.05, which pro-
vides expressly for the continuance of ex-
isting powers of the municipality, the
Chair suggests that the discussion has left
it far from clear that this section meets
either of the two requirements, and does
not, if it does not merely reaffirm what
is in section 7.05.
I would like you to comment on those
three things if you could, Delegate Carson.
In other words, if this is indeed not new
powers, but only existing powers, why is it
not covered by section 7.05?
DELEGATE CARSON: Mr. Chairman,
section 3 of Article XI-E of the present
Constitution contains the language that
you have here, except for the words, on
June 30, 1968, and the reference is iden-
tical to that. The case law and the Sobeloff
Commission's third report indicate clearly
that this is the basis for the section start-
ing with, I believe, section 12 in Article
25A of the present Code, which specifies
the exact procedures for municipal cor-
porate charter amendments.
Now, those sections in Article 23A do
not state how or for what purposes the
charter amendments may be made. They
merely specify in what manner they shall
be made.
There is a Maryland case, I believe it is
Hitchins, but I am not sure, interpreting
this particular language we have here, and
it makes it clear that a municipal cor-
poration under this language may amend
its charter and obtain any powers not
denied by general law, by the General As-
sembly, or by charter amendment subject
to referendum of the municipality.
That is all subject to general law passed
by the General Assembly, and still would
be under our proposal here.
So the underlying basis for municipal
corporate changes is in Article XI-A of
the Constitution, and the sections in Ar-
ticle 23A of the Code are only the imple-
mentation of that. As a matter of fact, the
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