could not muster any more than 28,000
votes for the office of mayor.
Now, I would sum up my entire feeling
about this subject of referendum and the
number of signatures: ladies and gentle-
men, if you are going to offer the law of
referendum to the voters of Maryland in
the form of a crab cake, do not put the
crab cake in a casing made of unbreakable
plastic. Do not put the thing out of reach
of the voters. Please vote for three per-
cent.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Koss.
DELEGATE KOSS: I want to oppose
the amendment offered by the minority to
change the percentage and set it at three
percent.
The general philosophy of the Committee
on Suffrage and Elections is, as has been
stated and restated, that we do not want
to permit challenges to the General As-
sembly that are fantasies or that repre-
sent the challenges of an insignificant num-
ber of our citizens. The argument has been
made that from 1962 when the petition re-
quirement was raised from 10,000 to the
current three per cent requirement, the
use of referendum has been sparse; since
only 12 laws were petitioned to referendum,
why increase the requirement.
I submit that in considering and evalu-
ating the use of the referendum, you must
consider not only the referendum that ac-
tually appeared on the ballot, but also
those which met the signature require-
ments, but were not considered valid for
other reasons, such as the absence of the
required financial information or that the
law was not constitutionally susceptible to
referendum or that the courts or the legis-
lature had rendered the issue moot.
It is difficult to determine how many
were successful in gathering the required
number of signatures but failed on other
grounds.
I know that in 1963 I participated in a
petition campaign and before the 1st of
June we presented to the secretary of
state petitions containing around 46,000
signatures, about the number that the Com-
mittee Recommendation would now require.
That was four years ago, when I assume
our population was less and the number
of registered voters was less and the num-
ber of people who voted was less. We did
get the signatures but not easily, and be-
cause this was an issue that a significant
number of voters were interested in. |
In terms of the population, I could not
deny Delegate Hutchinson's statement to
the effect that there will be a tremendous
increase, but I would like to remind you
that that increase has coming with it a
concentration of population, so that the
gathering of signatures and the proximity
of people would make it a great deal easier
than it would be now under our present
population.
I, therefore, urge you to reject this
amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Hutchin-
son.
DELEGATE HUTCHINSON: I would
like to delegate three minutes to Delegate
Byrnes.
THE CHAIRMAN: Before Delegate
Byrnes rises, for what purpose does Dele-
gate Miller rise?
DELEGATE B. MILLER: I would like
to submit an amendment to the amendment
if I may.
THE CHAIRMAN: Wait until the de-
bate concludes and then we will recognize
the amendment to the amendment.
DELEGATE BYRNES: Mr. Chairman,
I think the basis of my support for this
amendment is simply that the increase in
population will satisfy the objection able
things that we now have. I think it is well
to keep in mind that what we are talking
about is some display by the citizenry of
support not for the law but rather for
putting it on the ballot so that it may be
responded to by the citizenry.
I think the population will increase. We
are designing a document that is supposed
to last for a hundred years. I think we can
recognize the population increases over the
next decades will accomplish our objectives.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Scanlan,
for what purpose do you rise?
DELEGATE SCANLAN: I wanted to
speak against the amendment if that is
permissible. Are we still under controlled
time?
THE CHAIRMAN: We are still under
controlled time?
DELEGATE KOSS: I would like to
yield three minutes to Delegate Burdette.
DELEGATE BURDETTE: Mr. Chair-
man, I believe in representative government
and therefore I speak in favor of the Com-
mittee provision for five percent. By the |
