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the only way effectively to exclude this
100-year-old restrictive rule is to provide
shared powers. But why do so?
One benefit of this would be to revitalize
and stimulate county initiative to perform
new functions and to exercise powers in
local affairs to the extent that the General
Assembly has not preempted the field. It
will make home rule more effective.
There is another reason. The General
Assembly's involvement in local matters
will be reduced. Much of the General As-
sembly's time and attention is now devoted
to county affairs either through enactment
of local legislation or, more relevant to
this discussion, through the repeated de-
mand to grant specific additional powers
to counties.
Although mandated home rule will itself
reduce the quantities of local legislation,
shared powers will lessen the need to grant
additional powers to counties.
This should result from each county's
ability to act unless a general law has de-
nied all counties the right to act.
Moreover, under a shared powers ap-
proach the General Assembly must act posi-
tively and visibly to preempt some activity
for the State or to deny counties the right
to act in some field. The legislature cannot
deny a power simply by turning a deaf ear
on county governments when the repre-
sentatives ask for the power.
There are other benefits. One is that the
county solicitors will know the law more
precisely. We have had a number of com-
plaints from county solicitors testifying
before the Committee to the reflect that
they are unclear as to whether or not they
can act in an area. We discuss this in the
Committee report. I will not dwell on it.
Greater flexibility will also result if we
adopt the shared powers approach. When
express powers first were used, the powers
of local governments were more capable of
division along functional lines because gov-
ernmental functions were less complex.
For instance, traffic was looked upon as
a purely local function. There was then no
difficulty in making that judgment. Now,
obviously, it is an area-wide function and
no one would say traffic should be handled
solely by a municipality or county.
Another example is the health function
which used to be simple but now is not.
The shared powers approach is more flex-
ible in avoiding attempts to allocate powers
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to local units along functional lines. It will
permit the General Assembly to act by
general laws to deny counties the right to
perform specific functions which at any
given time could better be performed on an
areawide or statewide basis.
Let's turn to section 7.06, General Appli-
cation of Laws. This section provides that
with certain exceptions the plenary legisla-
tive power of the General Assembly which
is granted through section 3.01 shall be
exercised through general laws. These are
defined as laws which apply throughout the
State.
The intent of this section is to limit the
situation heretofore existing when in many
cases public local laws regulating local
matters were made applicable to a single
county or to a selected group of counties.
In addition, this section prevents the
General Assembly from achieving the effect
of a public local law by enacting a general
law and then saying it does not apply at
all in certain counties. This is specifically
prohibited.
I think that you can only look at this
section in context with what we have now,
so let's examine limitations on public local
legislation under the existing Constitution
very briefly.
Except with respect to charter counties
and Baltimore City, the General Assembly
can now pass public local laws for each
county virtually without restriction. Today,
the General Assembly is also free to exempt
any number of counties from a general law.
The present Constitution purports to
limit public local legislation with respect
to charter counties and Baltimore City in
these words:
"No public local law shall be enacted by
the General Assembly for said city or
county on any subject covered by the ex-
press powers granted as above provided."
It then says:
"Any law so drawn as to apply to two
or more of the geographical subdivisions
of this State" — meaning the counties or
Baltimore City — "shall not be deemed a
local law, within the meaning of this act."
The effect of this is that a law providing
for Baltimore County and Baltimore City
is a public general law even though it re-
lates to the internal affairs of each unit,
Even this ineffective limitation has been
watered down by law.
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