make their presence known to the delegate?
Is this what we want?
I suggest to you that this is what is
meant by the narrow views and the paro-
chial views that we suggest is the danger
of single-member districts. What is more,
don't the district interests have a secondary
importance to the state-wide interests? I
frankly have difficulty understanding what
the third legislative district interest is. It
has a view, which I hope to represent here.
I know that the city has an interest. I
know that the county has an interest. I
know that the state has an interest. I know
that the region would have an interest, but
I can not imagine what a district interest
would be.
If we wanted the ideal I would think we
would have state-wide elections, because
then we would get the state-wide perspec-
tive, but we can not.
Political realities, practical realities sug-
gest that we can not. So we go to what we
can achieve, and that is a multi-member
district. The single-member district to me
goes in the opposite direction.
There is experience which has not been
referred to and I would like to bring it to
our attention. Ohio in 1965 transformed
itself into single-member constituencies
The National Civic Review has a very ex-
cellent article, based on their study of the
single-member constituencies in Ohio and
I would like to read one of their conclu-
sions. The ballot has been shortened there,
thus making informed candidate choices
more feasible. However, evidence is lack-
ing that these choices raise the educational
or occupational level of the metropolitan
delegation. The hypothesis that better men
would run has not been confirmed from
the first election under single-member dis-
tricts insofar as quantitative measurement
of quality could determine.
This, I submit to you, is reality. Single-
member districts, I submit to you, is theory.
To be sure, we have it in senatorial dis-
tricts today, but not because of the rea-
sons that have been suggested, namely,
visibility. It is for practicality that we
have only one senator in a county.
THE CHAIRMAN: You have one half
minute, Delegate Byrnes.
DELEGATE BYRNES: Thank you, sir.
I will conclude with an example in my
district. In the Third Councilmanic Dis-
trict of Baltimore City we have three coun-
cilmen. Each one of them represents a dif- |
ferent philosophy, conservative, moderate,
and liberal. I suggest to you that if you go
to single-member districts, you are utterly
precluding those people who have a differ-
ent philosophy from the man who gets in
from ever having their views represented.
No district, no matter how small, will
have a unity of philosophy, governmental
policy or politics, and I suggest to you that
single-member districts would destroy the
variations. I therefore, ask you to support
the Rybczynski amendment and hopefully
also to support the Lord Amendment.
Thank you.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any other dele-
gate desire to speak in opposition to the
amendment to the amendment?
Delegate Freedlander?
DELEGATE FREEDLANDER: Mr.
Chairman, I am speaking in opposition to
the substitutute motion and in favor of
the Legislative Branch report.
During the days of discussion of the
possibility of enlarging the size of the
legislative body, we have heard much de-
bate about visibility and bringing the gov-
ernment closer to the people.
I think the single-member district is a
great opportunity in that direction. In cer-
tain districts of Baltimore City, where we
have seven or eight representatives, they
come from one part of the district and only
represent one part of the district. I be-
lieve that this is not truly visible or truly
representative.
There is another aspect that has not
been mentioned with regard to the State of
Maryland, and that is that there is a great
deal of mobility. There is a great deal of
inmigration. People are moving into the
state. We have many new developments.
The complaints from people who come into
new areas is that they cannot get into the
political arena because it is closed to them.
Single-member districts would provide
an opportunity to do something about mo-
bility in the state.
My third point is that if we believe in
the two-party system, which is practically
extinct in this state, it seems to me that a
single-member district would give us that
and would bring with it competition, and
perhaps higher quality candidates, because
they would be competing with an opposi-
tion party. For that reason also, I favor the
single member district presentation of the
Legislative Branch Committee. |
