gate Scanlan and Delegate Hanson will be
back again in court under the fair repre-
sentation committee or whatever that hon-
orable body is known as, and the courts are
going to say, you are going to have to re-
apportion, and we will have to come back
to the job all over again. I am looking for-
ward to the future.
THE CHAIRMAN: The question arises
on the adoption of Amendment No. 6. Dele-
gate Case?
DELEGATE CASE: Mr. Chairman, I
should like to ask two questions. I am not
quite sure to whom they should be directed,
but I assume Delegate Gallagher. Is this
permissible?
THE CHAIRMAN: Proceed.
DELEGATE CASE: Delegate Gallagher,
it has been suggested in debate that if we
adopt numbers 142 and 43, this will be an
inflexible figure. 1 question, is it more in-
flexible than the 105-35? Put differently,
are we talking numbers in view of the fact
we spent all day and had gotten through
lines 4, page 2 of your Report?
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: I would
say this. Any set of numbers is a number
that you are either going to be happy with
or unhappy with. The question is, can we
justify the numbers that we do adopt? I
see very little justification in adopting 142
and 43 because that certainly represents
the result of pragmatic, paper-work at-
tempts to fall under the constitutional man-
date of one man-one vote, and at the same
time not reduce the size of the General As-
sembly. That was the entire rationale, to
lose nobody but to add enough to be con-
stitutional. That was hardly an approach
that contemplated what is the best thing
for the General Assembly of Maryland in-
sofar as its ability to both represent the
people is concerned and to do the job that
the legislators are elected to do.
I feel that the 105 and 35 figure is one
that has been hammered out, admittedly by
compromise, but is a defensible position. I
think it would cast little credit upon this
body of one hundred forty-two people who
came down here to write constitutional law
for the long trip, so to speak, to say that
what a legislature grabbed in the interest
of perpetuating itself at the last moment
to get under an election wire ought to be
the kind of thing that you enshrine and
sanctify and canonize in the Constitution.
I think there is a basic difference between
the way you approach these two sets of
figures. The fact we have only gotten this |
far speaks well of this Convention, not ill,
because I hate to think we would make
these major decisions in the interest of
just getting the job out of the way.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Case, do
you have another question?
DELEGATE CASE: Mr. Chairman, I
suggest what has just happened proves the
age old adage, you should never ask an
expert a question because he will make a
speech.
The question was whether or not there is
anything more inflexible in 142 and 43 than
in 105 and 35 per se.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: I think that
those double sets of numbers will always
form a part of the numbers from one to
one thousand. So they are neither more nor
less inflexible.
THE CHAIRMAN: Do you have a fur-
ther question, Delegate Case?
DELEGATE CASE: So that the argu-
ment advanced by Delegate Scanlan is in-
appropriate in this regard.
The second question is this. You have
detailed with some degree of force and less
degree of light just how the compromise
figure of 105 and 35 was arrived at. As I
understand it, it was all oriented to the
efficiency of the two bodies.
Did you or your Committee at any time
in arriving at these figures take into con-
sideration the impact upon the political
subdivisions from which the delegates would
come? In other words, did you consider the
effect on the people of the State as dis-
tinguished from the two bodies which you
were seeking to construct?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gallagher.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: At all
times, Delegate Case, we were aware of the
fact that we had a double duty. We had a
duty to the people of Maryland, and we
had a duty to them not only on a repre-
sentational basis, but to provide them with
an effective General Assembly.
We regretted the loss of the identity of
the counties as a unit of representation in
the General Assembly. We were aware that
the Local Government Committee was at
work to see to it that as much self-govern-
ment as possible would take place back in
the county. We were further aware that
under the one man-one vote rule every citi-
zen of this State regardless of whether he
lived in Garrett, Worcester, Baltimore City |
