place over the weekend. He is absent this
week because he is in the hospital under-
going treatments for the entire week. I
talked to Mrs. Miller this morning. She
tells me he is coming along fine.
The treatments are for the purpose of
enabling him to continue his work here. He
expects to be here Monday.
(Applause)
This will be Amendment No. 18 to Com-
mittee Recommendation LB-1.
The Clerk will read the amendment.
READING CLERK: Amendment No. 18
to Committee Recommendation LB-I by
Delegates Bard, Gleason, Miller, Sollins
and Hanson: On pages 2 and 3 of Com-
mittee Recommendation LB-I strike all of
section 3.12, Legislative Sessions, and in-
sert in lieu thereof the following section:
"Section 3.12. Legislative Sessions
The General Assembly shall meet in regu-
lar annual sessions convening on the third
Wednesday of January of each year unless
otherwise prescribed by law. The governor
may convene at special session of the Gen-
eral Assembly at any time and must con-
vene a special session upon the written re-
quest of three-fifths of all the members of
each house."
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Bard, do
you move the amendment?
DELEGATE BARD: Mr. Chairman,
would you please give us the privilege of
dealing with lines 8 to the middle of 1I
prescribed by law first and should this
pass we would then move to the next sen-
tence, but we think that the continuation
of debate and the discussion and vote ought
to be on those two issues.
Mr. Chairman, as long as I have the
floor—
THE CHAIRMAN: Just a second.
Is the amendment seconded?
(Whereupon, the amendment was duly
seconded.)
THE CHAIRMAN: The Chair will di-
vide the question as requested and recog-
nize Delegate Bard to speak to the amend-
ment. At the proper time, the question will
be divided so we will consider first the first
sentence in lines 8 to 1I and therefore if
the first is adopted, consider the second
sentence in lines 1I to 15.
Delegate Bard. |
DELEGATE BARD: Mr. Chairman, do
I now have the privilege of calling upon
different individuals who have expressed a
desire—
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Bard, you
have control of twenty minutes of time.
You can use as much as you choose and
allocate the rest in any manner you choose.
DELEGATE BARD: I should like first
to give three minutes of that time to Dele-
gate Gleason.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gleason.
DELEGATE BARD: I am changing that
to five minutes, Mr. Chairman.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gleason,
you are recognized for five minutes to speak
in favor of the amendment.
DELEGATE GLEASON: Let me say,
Mr. Chairman, I hope it is only three.
Mr. Chairman and fellow delegates, we
are dealing here in this amendment with
which we shall set probably the most diffi-
cult question and critical issue that came
before the Legislative Branch Committee
outside of the question of the size of the
legislative body. The issue involved here in
essence is determination as to what is the
nature of a legislator; that question, of
course, can only be judged by what kind
of job that individual has to do.
Many individuals do feel, and many of
the people that come before our Committee
felt that a legislator here in Annapolis is
really only here to handle the executive
budget of the government. These people
feel that a legislator should have no time
to investigate problems on his own, no time
to study the solutions of the many differ-
ent problems that face him and face our
state.
Their fundamental concern, when you
take away all the wrappings, is if you leave
the legislative group to decide the length
of its session, it will stay in session too
long and will do more harm than good.
When you really interrogate what their
real concern is, this is what it simplifies
itself down to.
Many people argued before the Commit-
tee that the federal Congress is meeting in
recent years on a practically around-the-
clock basis. I would submit for your con-
sideration that that argument is rather
specious, specious on two kinds of grounds.
First of all, the Congress of the U. S. deals
with a multitude of problems that affect |
