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local government article, the use of the
phrase "by law," is meant to exclude any
requirement that the law be a public gen-
eral law as defined in section 7.06. You will
note its use here with respect to multi-
county governmental units particularly.
Section 7.02 and section 7.10, which I
understand are scheduled for debate and
action together require a referendum in
each county affected before a change in
county boundaries can be effected, or in
the case of merger, dissolution, and that
type of change. The sections permit the
General Assembly to provide local refer-
endum for approval of a law establishing
or affecting the powers of a popularly
elected representative regional government.
I will read 7.02: The General Assembly
may provide by law for the establishment,
merger, dissolution, and alteration of
boundaries of counties, but no such law
shall become effective until submitted to
the voters of each county affected and ap-
proved by a majority of those voting on
the question in each such county.
The entire thrust of the local govern-
ment article is toward making counties
stronger. With counties being strengthened
to provide a greater measure of area-wide
control over policy-making and services, it
is not likely that existing county lines will
be changed in the foreseeable future.
Therefore, we recommend that section 7.02
provide for this mandatory referendum.
This differs from the Commission draft
section 7.02 which requires a three-fifths
vote of the General Assembly. It is more
in accord with the present Constitution,
Article XIII, Section 1, but differs from
it in minor respects. That section requires
a referendum in just the district or area
affected, not a county-wide referendum.
Section 7.10 provides that the General
Assembly may provide by law for the es-
tablishment powers, change, merger, dis-
solution, and alteration of boundaries of
multi-county governmental units, intergov-
ernmental authorities, popularly elected
representative regional governments, and
other units of local government, but ex-
cluding municipal corporations and civil
units. The General Assembly may provide
referenda for any law establishing a popu-
larly elected representative regional gov-
ernment or affecting its power.
This, of course, provides permissive refer-
enda. The reason for the exclusion of mu-
nicipalities and civil units here is that they
are taken care of in another section.
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The most important feature of this pro-
vision is that it permits the General As-
sembly wide flexibility in structuring local
government. Action by public general law
is not required; therefore, the General As-
sembly may deal with situations separately
as the specific circumstances may arise.
We cannot today predict the best struc-
ture for strong, viable state and local gov-
ernment in Maryland. Limitations on the
legislative power to establish, change and
dissolve all units freely could prove trouble-
some in ways which are now incapable of
predicting. Therefore, the Committee feels
strongly that flexibility must be preserved,
even when it may be doubtful whether cer-
tain options should be exercised.
For instance, most knowledgeable per-
sons agree that single-purpose, non-repre-
sentative authorities should not be encour-
aged, and that a proliferation of such
agencies in the same region is undesirable.
However, since these authorities fre-
quently represent the only method of deal-
ing with multi-county problems, is this
permissive provision appears in the article.
The Committee deems it urgent that
multi-county units, whether popularly
elected or not, and whether called regional
government or something else, be controlled
by the General Assembly. Therefore, it
does not believe a mandated referendum
should precede the establishment of a so-
called regional government. We believe
that this would provide or create an imbal-
ance in local governmental structures, that
it would force the legislature to use single
purpose authorities. A number of other
reasons are outlined on page 13; I will not
go into them further.
Recognizing that the General Assembly
might wish to submit to a local referendum
all or part of a law creating a popularly
elected representative regional government
performing many functions if the need for
such government arose, the Committee has
agreed that the General Assembly should
be permitted, but not required, to do so,
but that the type of referendum should be
left to the General Assembly. This ap-
proach will permit the legislators to gauge
the temper of the times and also to fit re-
quirements for adoption of the law to the
type unit being created and its proposed
power.
The General Assembly as the elected
representatives of the people must be relied
upon to set the proper balance between
local interests on the one hand, and the
welfare of the State on the other.
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