certain other things that may be unclear
in this matter will be taken care of by
legislation. Thus far we have not been put
on notice that the Style and Drafting Com-
mittee will take care of the remaining
problems.
It has been pointed out there were a
number of problems with this language.
Nobody has seen fit to come up to respond
to any of those problems, such as whether
or not a law can be put on the ballot the
day after the petition has been submitted
because Amendment No. 14 requires under
number 12 that law can be submitted to
vote at the next general election, presum-
ably, if it is one day afterwards.
We provided in our committee report a
requirement that at least twenty-five per
cent of the voters who voted at the elec-
tion vote on that issue. Nobody has seen
fit to explain why it is that that provision
should be done away with.
We have extensive discussion in our
Committee, and some discussion here, with
regard to the problem engendered by the
language "when the law is to take effect",
especially if we do not provide in the Legis-
lative Article for some automatic effective
date as we now have.
There has been no discussion as to how
this will be handled if there is no automatic
effective date. Can we have a law, part of
which takes effect at one time, and part of
which takes effect at another time? Is part
to be suspended, the other part not? No
indication.
These and quite a number of other mat-
ters, some of which have been taken care
of this evening, were things we wrestled
with when presented with the Commission
draft. 1 strongly urge that Committee Rec-
ommendation S&E-1 has taken care of
these matters properly and should be sup-
ported.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Schloeder.
DELEGATE SCHLOEDER: I would
like to use the time remaining to say this.
I notice on Amendment No. 14 that two
sponsors of this amendment are members
of the Constitutional Convention Commis-
sion. I wonder if this would be the begin-
ning of a pattern that will evolve in this
Convention, that after we have debated
long and hard for two months in Commit-
tee and for this entire day out of Commit-
tee, here in the Committee of the Whole,
when it is all over, in they come walking
with the Constitutional Convention Com- |
mission draft. I feel compelled at this time
to say that as we as a Committee sat down
to study the material provided for us by
the Constitutional Convention Commission
we found this material remarkable in its
paucity. For instance, the primary source
material, the Ralabate report that was
quoted by the Commission we learned from
the author, Frank Ralabate who was an
employee of this Convention for a while,
that his report was not submitted to the
Commission until two weeks after the lan-
guage was drafted.
We also found that in the minutes of the
Commission report given to us that there
was very little time spent on this particular
aspect of that Commission's work. The
Commission worked in conjunction with
Personal Rights, in effect through a com-
bination Committee, Personal Rights and
Suffrage and Elections, and there was very
little of that time devoted to Suffrage and
Elections, and consequently very little ma-
terial we could draw on.
I say we worked long and hard and we,
as with the combined wisdom of those here
in the house, have been able to come to
some questions that we may not have been
able to answer. It does not seem to me this
last minute midnight appointment or
twenty-five minute to ten appointment is
the answer to two months of honest, hard,
sincere work on the part of the Committee.
It just does not seem appropriate to me.
This seems to be very hastily amended, and
before we wait for further amendments and
transitory legislation to clarify and the
Committee on Style and Drafting to fur-
ther clarify, I would submit to you that
we have here before us, in S&E-1, the basis
of that same kind of operation. I would
hope you would vote against this amend-
ment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Case.
DELEGATE CASE: Mr. Chairman,
after that last blast, as a poor beleaguered
member of the Constitutional Convention
Commission, I wonder if I can ask Delegate
Gilchrist two questions. Would he yield?
THE CHAIRMAN: Will the delegate
yield?
DELEGATE GILCHRIST: Certainly.
DELEGATE CASE: Delegate Gilchrist,
you mentioned that you had included the
Hostetter amendment but I notice left out
after the words "emergency laws" the
words "and necessary for the immediate
preservation of the public health and |
