The Committee felt that in view of the
increasing urbanization of our population
it was certainly proper to increase the fig-
ure from our present one, but I do not
think that you should make it an impossi-
bility.
The question of tying the time factor to
the number of signatures, I would like to
say, is quite unfair. Nobody who has ever
collected signatures on petitions—and I
have—is ever going to say that the record
on the first day is one that you can main-
tain for ninety days. Your record in the
first month bears no relationship to what
you can expect to get in the second month,
and I suspect that what you get in the third
month is much less than what you get in
the second month, so that the increase of
thirty days again I think is an idle gesture.
On the basis of the time, I would grant
that, again, the minority intends its amend-
ment to make it more difficult to suspend;
nobody can question that. But I think what
it does is make it virtually impossible to
suspend and I feel that suspendability is
an important part of the referendum pro-
cedure. Certainly it must be controlled, but
certainly it should not be made an impos-
sibility.
THE CHAIRMAN: For what purpose
does Delegate Bennett rise?
DELEGATE BENNETT: I rise to speak
in favor of the Chabot amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN. All right.
The delegate may proceed.
DELEGATE SCHLOEDER: Mr. Chair-
man, I wonder, for procedure, so this is not
charged on the body's time I will be very
happy to yield two minutes or three min-
utes to Delegate Bennett.
THE CHAIRMAN: The tape is inter-
rupting procedures. Nobody has any time
right at the moment. We have not utilized
all of the controlled time.
Does Delegate Chabot wish to yield to
anyone? I would also have to accord Dele-
gate Schloeder's use of controlled time, too,
so that we have not utilized all of the con-
trolled time yet.
Does Delegate Schloeder wish to yield
any of his time?
DELEGATE SCHLOEDER: Yes. I
would be happy at this time to yield two
minutes to Delegate Bennett.
DELEGATE BENNETT: Mr. Chair-
man, members of the Convention: |
I am afraid that the Convention is get-
ting confused over figures and they have
not gotten down to the nitty-gritty part of
this problem.
What Mr. Chabot's amendment does in
essence is increase the number of voters
that are necessary to petition a bill to ref-
erendum, thus making it more difficult.
Now, every study that has so far been
made of a referendum procedure shows
that it facilitates government by well fi-
nanced, organized minorities; that it is
clear that in our own State, and I think
elsewhere in the union, that the percent-
age of voters who will vote on referendum
proposals is much less than those who vote
for the candidates in the elections. So that
a well organized propaganda group can
frustrate the work of the legislature.
Moreover, seldom are voters able to un-
derstand the language that is on the ballot,
and they must, therefore—and usually do—
vote blindly.
Another objection to it is that again it
lengthens the ballot, already too long; and
so I ask the members of the Convention to
support Mr. Chabot's amendment for the
fundamental purpose that it is going to
strengthen our legislature. It is going to
prevent well organized minorities, well fi-
nanced minorities, from frustrating this
legislature we have tried so hard to up-
build.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Koss, do
you wish to yield any of your time?
DELEGATE KOSS: I yield three min-
utes to Delegate Pascal.
DELEGATE PASCAL: Fellow dele-
gates, first of all, let me state that the ma-
jority of the Committee Report did not
want referendum to be a promiscuous de-
vice of special interest groups. We studied
the proposal that is now before you, this
amendment, and we rejected it for the
following reasons: first, no state in the un-
ion has the criteria of registered or quali-
fied voters as a base for petition, and the
reason they do not have that particular
base is its unreliability. If we can take an
example from the State of Maryland: in
Anne Arundel County in 1965 we had a
reregistration that took twelve months. We
started off with 84,000 voters, and wound
up with 74,000 when we counted them
again; in Baltimore City in the last can-
vass, after the count was taken they came
up with 25,000 fewer voters; in Mont-
gomery County we are supposed to have |
