THE PRESIDENT: I wish also to rec-
ognize the presence in the gallery of a
student group from Montrose School for
Girls at Reisterstown, Maryland. They are
attending the General Session this after-
noon.
(Applause.)
Next item on the agenda is reports of
other standing committees. There is a re-
port of the Committee on General Provi-
sions, Committee Recommendation GP-2.
The Clerk will read the recommendation.
READING CLERK: Committee Recom-
mendation GP-2, by the Committee on Gen-
eral Provisions, Elroy D. Boyer, Chairman.
A recommendation that the constitution in-
clude a provision on oath.
THE PRESIDENT: Committee Recom-
mendation GP-2 is referred to the Commit-
tee of the Whole. There is filed with this
recommendation Committee Memorandum
GP-2. You should have both.
Next item on the agenda is consideration
of the Committee Report of the Committee
on Rules, Credentials and Convention
Budget, Rule R&C 12 filed several days
ago. The Chair recognizes Delegate Scan-
lan, Chairman of the Committee, and re-.
quests that he come forward to the Clerk's
desk.
DELEGATE SCANLAN: Mr. President,
fellow delegates, I have the honor to pre-
sent the Twelfth Report of the Committee
on Rules, Credentials and Convention
Budget. Hopefully this should be about our
last report, at least on any matter of
great substance.
The report which I hope you have read
is rather long and deals with a number of
technical amendments to the rules. How-
ever, at least two of the proposed amend-
ments to the rules merit your careful con-
sideration. I would like briefly to summar-
ize what your Committee has proposed.
The first amendment we propose is an
amendment to present Rule 33 [35]*. The
purpose of the amendment is to make sure
that whatever the rule regarding the print-
ing and distribution of amendments may
be, it applies both in the Committee of the
Whole and in the Convention itself. The
majority of amendments to be offered by
delegates will be offered in the Committee
of the Whole, but when the Committee on
Style has finished its work and the matter
comes back before the Convention for sec-
ond reading amendments will be in order.
So whatever the rules or requirements with |
respect to the printing and distribution of
amendments, they should be uniform in
both instances.
The second amendment we propose is
some liberalization of matters that can be
taken up in the Committee of the Whole.
On page 3 of our Report we have two pro-
posed changes regarding matters in the
Committee of the Whole. We propose first
to prohibit laying the question on the table
in the Committee of the Whole. The matter
is unclear now under the present rule. On
the other hand, the rule regarding the
Committee of the Whole makes it perfectly
clear that you cannot move the previous
question.
Therefore, in order not to allow that pro-
hibition to be circumvented and evaded by
use of a motion to table, we propose to
insert "no question may be laid on the
table" in Rule 36 [38] dealing with pro-
ceedings in the Committee of the Whole.
Our second suggestion here is again
somewhat technical. Under ordinary parlia-
mentary procedure, no motion to postpone
to a time certain in the Committee of the
Whole can be entertained. We think this is
unwise because it has become already ap-
parent that sessions of the Committee of
the Whole will last four, five, and possibly
six hours. There may come an occasion
when we want to postpone consideration of
something in the Committee of the Whole
to a later hour in the afternoon. The rec-
ommendation of your Committee would per-
mit that.
On the other hand, ordinary parlimen-
tary procedure applies when the motion is
made to postpone to a time definite, unless
these rules provide otherwise. Since ordi-
narily in parliamentary practice this is a
debatable motion, we could see the Commit-
tee of the Whole getting bogged down in
debate about whether you should postpone
something to a time certain.
So that we have provided and recom-
mended limitation on that. We would rec-
ommend that the rule be amended by in-
serting the words "Any motion to postpone
further consideration shall be debatable for
ten minutes, no speech thereon to exceed
two minutes." It would provide very limited
debate if and when this type of situation
should arise.
The next amendment we have is also
somewhat technical in nature. I think that
*The number in brackets refers to the
final number assigned to the rule in the
Rules of Constitutional Convention of
Maryland. |
