gin, though the margin is undefined, by
which the population within the legislative
district may vary from each other, and
inasmuch as their decisions leave much
room for coming up with different systems
of representation, they may adequately take
care of all the sections in our State. The
ability to use that margin to accommodate
larger sections of our State should not be
curtailed by restricting the size of the leg-
islature in the constitution.
Thank you very much.
THE CHAIRMAN: Are there any ques-
tions of the minority spokesman for pur-
poses of clarification of the Minority Re-
port, LB-ID?
Delegate Chabot.
DELEGATE CHABOT: Delegate Glea-
son, would you indicate to us which are
the states which presently do not set the
size of their legislature or set some maxi-
mum size in their constitutions?
DELEGATE GLEASON: I have to say
in response to that, because I asked myself
that question, that the research material
which we have does not show that fact. It
shows how many are established by law.
Unless the Chairman has it, I do not think
it is in the material that I have.
It is a little difficult since the reappor-
tionment to decide who in effect estab-
lishes size because, as in Maryland, we
had it in the legislature. The Constitution
did not do it. It could not do it. It was
unconstitutional. The legislature did it.
They put out two plans, and, of course,
one of those was overturned by the courts
and the other was accepted.
Other states are in similar circumstances,
so that the material that I have does not
meet the specific question of the delegate.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Chabot.
DELEGATE CHABOT: Well, then, could
you indicate to us which are the states that
clearly permit the size to be established by
the legislature, without a constitutional in-
termission?
DELEGATE GLEASON: No, because
the answer to the last question covers this
one as well. All I have is the numbers. I
do not have the states themselves.
THE CHAIRMAN: Are there any other
questions of the minority spokesman?
Delegate Miller.
DELEGATE B. MILLER: Delegate
Gleason, you mentioned the fact that not |
one delegate—am 1 correct that you said
that not one delegate testified before us
and said that the House was too large?
DELEGATE GLEASON: No, I did not
say that. I said the testimony before the
Committee was mixed. I read from the
Eagleton Institute of Politics' Report,
where they said that not one member of
the legislature commented to them that the
size was unwieldy, although the members
were not asked that directly.
DELEGATE B. MILLER: Do you hap-
pen to know whether they asked the
question?
DELEGATE GLEASON: I just said
that that was not in their list of questions
they asked, but as you know, interviews
covered all ranges of effectiveness of some-
thing like that, so I am sure if it was a
pressing problem it would have been dis-
cussed by the legislators.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Miller.
DELEGATE B. MILLER: I have another
question, Mr. Chairman.
Delegate Gleason, at some point the
Committee discussed the proposal that you
have just made. Do you happen to recall
the vote in the Committee on that proposal?
DELEGATE GLEASON: No, I do not.
Do you?
Maybe the Chairman can answer that.
Delegate Gallagher, did we ever vote on
the question of leaving it up to the legisla-
ture?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gallagher.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Mr. Chair-
man, we did at one point vote on such a
proposition, when combined with the ratio
figure, and the vote was 13 against setting
it by law and 7 for, so it failed in Com-
mittee by a vote of 13 to 7. The ratio
which was hooked on to it was a three-to-
one ratio.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Scanlan.
DELEGATE SCANLAN: At the risk
of repeating Delegate Chabot's question I
am somewhat confused. He asked you if
you could tell us which states do not put
a Constitutional limit on the size of their
legislature. Now, you did recite some sta-
tistics. I counted up about 32 states that
had various forms of restrictions, either
on one house or the other, or both, or the
ranges. Surely in accumulating that re- |
