bility and permanence, and consequently is
entitled to favorable action.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any other dele-
gate desire to speak in opposition?
Delegate Cardin.
DELEGATE CARDIN: I rise not to
speak in opposition, but as one of the spon-
sors, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to offer an amendment to
our amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Is the amendment
printed?
DELEGATE CARDIN: No.
THE CHAIRMAN: Is it a mere modi-
fication?
DELEGATE CARDIN: It is merely a
modification.
THE CHAIRMAN: State it, please.
DELEGATE CARDIN: In line 4 I would
like, after the word "increase" to strike
out "or decrease."
THE CHAIRMAN: The sponsor desires
to modify Amendment No. 19 by striking
the words "or decrease" in line 4. The modi-
fication shall be permitted.
DELEGATE CARDIN: I should like to
explain that I believe this has caused some
confusion and difficulty in our presentation.
The idea was to inject as much flexibility
into this provision of the constitution as
possible.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
Does any other delegate desire to speak
in opposition to the amendment?
Delegate Gleason.
DELEGATE GLEASON: Mr. Chairman,
sometimes I despair a little as to whether
we have spoken clearly about what we are
attempting to do here. Perhaps this feeling
just comes from the fact that I have been
on the losing side so long, but I do think
that some of the sponsors of this amend-
ment did not listen too carefully to the
arguments that were raised in support of
the minority report of the amendment that
was just defeated.
What was said there was that the legis-
lative body should be enabled to trim their
mast to fit the storm, not that a legislative
body in a preceding General Assembly
should be able to set the schedule, and that
is what this amendment proposes. |
If there is a decrease passed by the exist-
ing General Assembly, what it will be say-
ing to the following successive General
Assembly is: you may be able to doit in
90 days, but, friend, you have to do it in
the time period that we have set the law
for.
I hope this amendment is rejected.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any other dele-
gate desire to speak in opposition to the
amendment?
Delegate Bard.
DELEGATE BARD: Mr. Chairman, I
should like to speak in opposition to the
amendment, and the reason for it is as
follows: those of us who put together the
minority report, [LB-1(F)], Amendment
No. 18, were deeply concerned about the
fact that when a problem faces the State
of Maryland, the time to deal with it is
now, that you should not run away from
the problem, that you should not be overly
concerned about the press or the League
of Women Voters, or the government, or
whatever, but the focus must be on the
problem. As a matter of fact, from what I
know about the League of Women Voters,
they like to deal with this type of thing,
and I am sure this is true of the press,
and therefore what this is doing is saying
we think this problem is serious, but we
are not going to handle it. We will turn it
over to someone else so we will not be
blamed for the result, nor will we have the
problem of making decisions on our con-
science.
To my way of thinking it is a 'round
about way of dealing with this whole con-
cept of having the legislature really take
the bull by the horns at the time they need
to do it.
THE CHAIRMAN: Is there any other
debate?
(There was no response.)
Are you ready for the question?
(Call for the question.)
The question arises on the adoption of
Amendment No. 19 to Committee Recom-
mendation LB-1. A vote Aye is a vote in
favor of Amendment No. 19. A vote No is
a vote against.
Cast your votes.
Will the doorman please see if there are
any delegates in the corridor?
Has every delegate voted? There are ap- |
