like to quarrel just a trifle with Judge
Henderson on the interpretation of the
word emergency. My recollection is that
when the use of the word "emergency"
legislation was used, when we had limited
sessions, the Court of Appeals went behind
the term "emergency" in the case of a local
bond issue which was passed during a
limited session, and said that it could in-
quire behind the emergency to find, as a
matter of fact, whether an actual emer-
gency existed, and it declared a local bond
issue to be invalid because there was no
emergency, in spite of the legislative decla-
ration. Would it not, therefore, be possible
to couch the thing in constitutional terms
so that it would be clear that the legisla-
tive declaration of emergency, or whatever
term you used, would not be judicially re-
viewable so that the term "emergency legis-
lation" which everybody understands could
be utilized?
Did you consider that approach?
DELEGATE KOSS: Delegate James, I
suppose that to some extent we thought
this would be a prerogative of the Commit-
tee on the Legislative branch. We agreed
to the point that the General Assembly
should have this authority, but that the
language for the form of bills, or what
kind of bills would more naturally fall
into the Committee on Legislative Branch.
I do not think that anybody in our Com-
mittee would have any objection to their
so defining them so that they would not be
subject to judicial review.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Koger?
DELEGATE KOGER: Madam Chair-
man, would any federal law be subject to
state referendum? I do not know if that
was asked or not. I did not quite get the
answer.
Would a federal law be subject to state
referendum?
THE CHAIRMAN: You mean a public
general law, Delegate Koger?
DELEGATE KOGER; No. a federal law.
DELEGATE KOSS: No, Delegate Koger,
it would not.
DELEGATE KOGER: Is there a differ-
ence between a law relating to Congres-
sional districting?
DELEGATE KOSS: Yes, because the
Congress assigns to the states the responsi-
bility for setting up the Congressional dis-
tricts, but this is a function of the states,
although it is a districting of the Congres-
sional seats within the State of Maryland. |
THE CHAIRMAN: In other words,
Delegate Koss is saying, Delegate Koger,
that the establishment of Congressional
districts is accomplished by state law.
Delegate Case.
DELEGATE CASE: Delegate Koss,
those of us who have had to deal with these
things from time to time throughout the
years have come to understand that state
bond issues which are serviced by the full
faith and credit of the state, which is now,
of course, the property tax, are one of the
types of laws which are not subject to
referendum under the existing Article XVI.
Was there any intention of your Commit-
tee to change that?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Koss.
DELEGATE KOSS: At the time that
we considered this provision, it was under-
stood that the legislation providing for
bonds, as in the past, was required to in-
clude a tax for general obligation bonds,
and on that basis we assumed that they
were subject to referendum. Now I under-
stand the Committee on State Finance will
recommend that there be an elimination of
the requirement for special tax to support
general obligation bonds.
In the absence of such a requirement,
whether a bond issue could be referred or
not seems to depend upon its purpose. If
the purpose of the bond could be construed
as maintaining the state government, or
aiding or maintaining a public institution,
then I would assume it would not be re-
ferrable. Otherwise, I would also assume
it would be referrable, if it were not tied
to a tax.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Case.
DELEGATE CASE: I am not quite sure
that the answers to my questions must be
that your Committee intended to make no
change, because those are the kinds of
bonds I was talking about, full faith and
credit bonds.
DELEGATE KOSS: That is right.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Scanlan.
DELEGATE SCANLAN: The Commis-
sion draft dealt with the referendum prob-
lem in three fairly succinct sections.
The model state constitution deals with
it in one section. One of the criticisms of
the present Constitution made by the Com-
mission was the large complication and
proplixity of the present provisions of sec-
tion 2 of Article XVI of the present Con-
stitution, dealing with the referendum. |
