THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Boileau,
we thank you.
The Clerk will read the amendment.
READING CLERK: Amendment No. 5
to Committee Recommendation S&E-I, by
Delegates Gilchrist, Scanlan and Freed-
lander: In Committee Recommendation
S&E-1: On page I strike all of lines 9
through 24; on page 2 strike out all of
lines I through 50: and on page 3 strike
out all of lines I through 6; and insert in
lieu thereof the following:
"1. Right of Referendum. If, within
sixty days from the date on which a bill
becomes law, a petition is filed with the
office of the governor to refer the law to
a vote of the people, the law shall be sub-
mitted to a vote at the next general elec-
tion. If rejected by a majority of those
voting on the question, the law shall
stand repealed thirty days thereafter. If
the petition is filed before the date on
which the law is to take effect, then, un-
less the law is one passed by the affirma-
tive vote of three-fifths of all the mem-
bers of each house of the General As-
sembly, it shall not take effect until
thirty days after its approval by a ma-
jority of those voting on the question in
the election.
"2. Referendum Petition. A petition
shall be sufficient to refer a law, or any
part thereof, to a vote of the people if
signed by a number of qualified voters
equal to five percent of the total number
of votes cast for governor in the most
recent gubernatorial election, provided
that not more than one-half of such re-
quired number shall be voters residing in
any one county.
"3. Referendum Restrictions. No plan
for legislative districting or apportion-
ment or congressional districting, no law
imposing a tax and no law making an
appropriation for maintaining the State
government or for aiding or maintaining
any public institution shall be subject to
referendum."
THE CHAIRMAN: The Chair recog-
nizes Delegate Gilchrist.
DELEGATE GILCHRIST: Mr. Chair-
man, I move the substitution of this amend-
ment, the correct number of which I will
say I am uncertain of at the moment—
THE CHAIRMAN: Number 5.
DELEGATE GILCHRIST: Number 5,
for the report of the Committee which is |
embodied in Committee Recommendation
S&E-1.
THE CHAIRMAN: The question arises
upon the adoption of the amendment, and
the delegate may speak and explain the
provisions of the amendment.
DELEGATE GILCHRIST: The amend-
ment is offered for the purpose of trying
to clarify a considerable number of un-
certainties which appear to us to have
arisen in the recommendations of the Com-
mittee.
In section I of the Committee Report,
the Convention will note that there is a
reference to every law being subject to
referendum. This would include within its
terms not only public general laws, but
public local laws, special laws and emer-
gency acts, all of which have been recog-
nized in Maryland, and which you will find
on many occasions upheld by the Court of
Appeals.
These terms are words of art. The refer-
ence to special legislation, which is made
in the second sentence of section 2 of Com-
mittee Recommendation S&E-I is one which
the Committee itself has acknowledged in
its memorandum is not an entirely satis-
factory requirement.
I might point out that the Court of Ap-
peals has accepted as a definition of a
special law that it is one intended for a
particular case, one which relates to par-
ticular persons or things of a class or for
less than all persons of a class.
Section 2 would in its terms also apply
to every law presently on the statute books,
unless it is to be considered as modified by
the last section of section 3 in that respect.
Section 4 of Committee Recommendation
S&E-I is really a statutory matter. Sec-
tion 5 is also something which could be
covered by statute. The legislature cer-
tainly has the privilege of implementing
the referendum provision by laws which
would not be consistent with it.
A problem also arises in connection with
the use of the term "date of enactment,"
which is repeated a number of times in the
Committee proposal. It was the impression
of some members of the Committee on the
Legislative Branch, following testimony by
Dr. Carl Everstine that "date of enact-
ment" referred to the date on which a bill
was passed by the two houses, both houses,
and that actually this should refer to the
date on which it becomes law, not its effec-
tive date but when it becomes law, which |
