determination and wide responsibility for
the proposed General Assembly.
In particular, it avoided the temptation
to bypass such agitating questions as de-
termination of length of session and salary
setting by such a devious device as the cre-
ation of commissions to carry this burden.
By and large, the Committee recognized
that it was writing a long-term document,
and consequently it sought to avoid restric-
tions within it which would admittedly
meet the problems of the immediate future
but which, over the long run, might well
prove to act as impediments.
In searching for the outline of the mod-
ern structure, the Committee was not un-
mindful of the value of tradition and his-
tory. Nothing of value was discarded be-
cause it was old, and nothing new was pro-
vided solely on the basis that it was some
glittering innovation.
Within the framework of this balancing
of the old and proven with the new and
necessary, the Committee decided upon a
bicameral legislature, but it reached dis-
agreement on the premise that the accom-
panying recommendations supplied the best
kind of bicameralism. Admittedly then in
a certain sense the Committee report is a
consensus document. It represents a legis-
lative structure based upon a rationale
which the vast majority of the Committee
could well support. Radical deviations in
either direction would destroy this con-
sensus and would render the recommenda-
tions abhorrent to those on the far side of
the spectrum. To say, therefore, that the
recommendations represent a compromise
is not to detract from the simplicity, clarity
and recognition of values represented and
preserved.
The Committee has not been unmindful
of the existing basis of actual political
strength, nor has it sought intentionally to
destroy vested interests, although some
might well be destroyed. Since, however, it
has sought a responsible legislature, a
legislature easily observed and a respon-
sibility explicitly imposed, its by-product
will. hopefully, be a concentration of pub-
lic attention upon the individual legislator.
The Committee would hope, therefore,
that it has fashioned a body where the op-
portunity to serve is commensurate with
the likelihood of being accurately evaluated
by the electorate on the basis of actual per-
formance.
To be lost among large numbers, not to
be accountable for decisions, and to carry |
but a portion of the responsibility to the
electorate are evils which the Committee
sought to eliminate.
These are the reasons which impelled
Committee approval of what follows. These
recommendations may not be what each of
the 20 members of the Committee would
have preferred if he were the sole author of
the section, but the recommendations do
represent what the vast majority of the
Committee agreed upon in the crucible of
the democratic process, and on that basis
the committee report is presented.
I would stress in taking up section 3.01
which provides that the legislative power
of the State is vested in the General As-
sembly, which shall consist of two houses,
the Senate and the House of Delegates,
that this particular section be read in con-
junction with the remainder of the recom-
mendations. That is to say, I am suggesting
to the Committee of the Whole that the re-
port which you have before you is a pack-
age, and was voted upon with the idea that
it contained the elements throughout which
made each and every section satisfactory to
the majority of the members of the Com-
mittee.
The Committee heard 68 witnesses, of
whom 31 were present or former members
of the General Assembly, 11 were profes-
sionals in the field or authors and academi-
cians—I hesitate and do not use the word
experts—and 13 were legislative agents or
lobbyists or fell into other categories.
In suggesting the adoption of a bicameral
General Assembly, the Committee did not
believe that we should depart from tradi-
tion or history. In each of the four Consti-
tutions under which the State of Maryland
has operated, there has been a bicameral
General Assembly of various sizes and vari-
ous compositions, and throughout prac-
tically the entire colonial period of the
State of Maryland, with the exception of a
few years, the experience of this State was
to operate both with an upper house and
a lower house.
I think our Committee perhaps was some-
what amused, but nonetheless impressed by
the colloquy which is said to have occurred
between Thomas Jefferson and George
Washington with respect to a bicameral
General Assembly. Jefferson, we are told,
was chiding Washington at the breakfast
table as to why Washington had voted for
a two-house General Assembly, to which
Washington replied to Jefferson, "Why,
sir, do you pour the tea from your cup into
your saucer?" |
