DELEGATE BENNETT: Do you inter-
pret this amendment, Delegate Hostetter,
as making it easier to frustrate the actions
of the legislature than the language you
suggest?
DELEGATE KOSS: Yes.
DELEGATE BENNETT: I am against
it.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does everyone have
his amendment now? Does anyone desire
to have a copy of the amendment? If so,
please raise your hand.
For what purpose does Delegate Bam-
berger rise?
DELEGATE BAMBERGER: I desire to
direct a question to the Chairman of the
Committee.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does the Chairman
yield?
DELEGATE KOSS: Yes, I do.
DELEGATE BAMBERGER: I think the
Chairman has pointed out that this amend-
ment has one other effect, and that is, as
I read the Committee suggestions, legis-
lation which would not be suspendable
would have to be introduced as special
legislation, and if in the course of its pas-
sage through the houses of the General As-
sembly a committee decided that it was
legislation which deserved to stay in effect,
even if a referendum petition were filed, a
committee could not add the usual emer-
gency clause to it.
Would you tell me why the Committee
decided to adopt that procedure?
DELEGATE KOSS: Well, since the ref-
erendum is a process that is used by voters
and not by members of the General As-
sembly, it was felt that any additional
time or information that would be made
available to citizens would be helpful, and
that by requiring that the law be identi-
fied as such upon introduction would alert
people to the possibility that this, not to
the possibility, to the probability that this
was nonsuspendable legislation.
Now whatever anybody else has to say
about the General Assembly, I maintain
that as a citizen it is very difficult to find
out what goes on in committee, and even
to sit in the gallery and watch the action
on the floor, so that we felt that by in-
sisting that it be so identified upon intro-
duction, this was in a sense a guaranty to
the people that they would know what was
going on. |
DELEGATE SCANLAN: Mr. Chair-
man?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Scanlan.
DELEGATE SCANLAN: A question to
the Chairman of the Committee.
THE CHAIRMAN: Will the Chairman
yield?
DELEGATE KOSS: I yield.
DELEGATE SCANLAN: I understood
in response to a question put to the Chair-
lady by Delegate Bennett, she answered
that the amendment proposed by Delegate
Hostetter would present a greater danger
of frustrating the will of the General As-
sembly, but then in answering the question
put to her by Delegate Bamberger it seems
to indicate to me that her answer to Dele-
gate Bennett should have been no, rather
than yes, because under Delegate Hostet-
ter's proposal, if the General Assembly
during the course of the legislative history
decided that legislation which had not been
nonsuspendable upon its introduction sud-
denly assumed the quality of some emer-
gency, it could amend the statute by putting
in the necessary magic clause, whether you
call it emergency or special legislation, and
thus make it nonsuspendable. So is it not
true, Mrs. Koss, that Delegate Hostetter's
amendment presents the situation where
there would be less likelihood that the will
of the. General Assembly in enacting legis-
lation could be frustrated by the referen-
dum process?
DELEGATE KOSS: Delegate Scanlan,
I would suggest that the will of the Gen-
eral Assembly could be frustrated in more
than one way, and I think it was unfair
to put those two answers together and
come out with one conclusion.
It seems to me that under the terms of
Mr. Hostetter's amendment, the term
"emergency" and the accompanying limita-
tion in terms of a definition for immediate
preservation of public health or safety
would in those terms frustrate the Gen-
eral Assembly if they were bound by that.
That was the context of my answer to
Delegate Bennett. I still would stand by it.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Rybczyn-
ski.
DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: Mr. Chair-
man, I would like to add still another
thought to the question on Delegate Bam-
berger's point, as to whether or not after
a committee decided that a bill should be- |
