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THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Ross, do
you desire to answer?
DELEGATE ROSS: Well, the general
rationale for this was, as I pointed out
before, to continue the existing provisions.
I admit that we had not had the oppor-
tunity to hold hearings on this, but we had
not received any evidence either that this
has done any great disservice to any part
of the State that had law imposed upon it,
in a case where it is to its detriment, and
it had no opportunity to so say.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Bamberger,
I think there is an addition which may be
made to Delegate Ross' answer, and that is
that the whole philosophy of the constitu-
tion drafted by this Convention is to confine
the General Assembly to laws of statewide
import, and obviously such laws should be
referable only on a statewide basis. The
exemptions to that principle, that is, the
power of the General Assembly to act other
than on a statewide basis, are limited to a
few very definite areas spelled out in sec-
tion 3.23. It was deemed proper to permit
a local referendum on the exercise of a
power in one of those eight areas in 3.23
if the law was applicable only to one
county, but the law's application stretched
beyond one county. Then it became one of
statewide import, and obviously this line
cannot be drawn hard and fast. There are
gray areas, but, for instance, a law provid-
ing for sonic sort of multi-county govern-
ment would be deemed to be one not refer-
able only to the people of the area invloved,
but would be a statewide question.
Delegate Case.
DELEGATE CASE: Mr. Chairman, that
is absolutely correct, with one slight caveat.
You remember that when the local govern-
ment section was before the Committee of
the Whole and later the Convention, the
question of referendum on questions involv-
ing multi-county governmental units was
much debated. You will also recall that we
adopted an amendment to what is now sec-
tion 7.08, which provides an exception to
the exception, and that is that the General
Assembly may provide, on any law related
to this subject, for the referendum proce-
dure in that particular area so that what
you have here is, as the Chairman stated,
an absolute right of referendum statewide,
and a provision giving the General Assem-
bly the right, notwithstanding that, to pro-
vide for any suitable referendum it deems
appropriate in that particular case.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Bamberger.
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DELEGATE BAMBERGER: If we adopt
Amendment No. 12, then I doubt that un-
der section 7.08 the General Assembly
could provide for a referendum in less than
the whole State. It does seem to me now
that Delegate Case points out a conflict be-
tween section 7.08 and Amendment No. 12.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Case.
DELEGATE CASE: Not at all, Delegate
Bamberger. The amendment that is before
you, Amendment No. 12, applies where
there is only one county involved. It does
not apply where you have a multi-county
governmental unit, which means more than
one county.
Where you have a multi-county govern-
mental unit dealing with more than one
county, then it would have, as I said earlier,
the general provision for statewide refer-
endum, and/or in the absence of that, the
provisions of section 7.08.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Sollins.
DELEGATE SOLLINS: A question to
the Chair, please. I think what this amend-
ment is directed at are the exceptions con-
tained in section 3.23, those dealing with
public education and natural environment
and resources. Those are the only two oc-
casions that I could see where this refer-
endum could be applicable, and I wonder if
perhaps the Style Committee could not —
I see Delegate Penniman wince; I am sorry
— could not perhaps redraft this to incor-
porate the language in section 3.23 in an
appropriate manner and solve this problem.
THE PRESIDENT: The effort has been
made to do this for considerable time today,
and it was thought it had been accom-
plished in the latter part of this section.
Delegate Case.
DELEGATE CASE: Delegate Sollins,
The language is taken right out of what is
now section 3.23. That is where the lan-
guage came from.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Ross.
DELEGATE ROSS: I might say also
that while, as Delegate Case indicated, the
language was taken out, the reason that
those two exceptions were not made spe-
cifically is that this is a constitution and
the constitution is subject to amendment,
and we wanted to write this in a lasting
fashion if we could.
THE PRESIDENT: Delegate Jett.
DELEGATE JETT: I move the previous
question.
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