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For instance, the law authorizing Balti-
more City to license paperhangers has been
held to be a public general law, despite the
language I just quoted above, because the
law might adversely affect state revenues
and because it would permit the City to ex-
clude nonresidents from acting as paper-
hangers in the City.
What then has been the effect of this
constitutional arrangement on the General
Assembly? If you turn with me to page 39
of the Committee Memorandum I will cite,
I promise briefly, some figures.
You see from this that in 1902, 80 per
cent of all laws passed by the General As-
sembly were local laws. From 1919 to 1943
the percentage varied from 50 to 65 per-
cent. In 1953 it had risen to 77 percent.
After the adoption of mandatory mu-
nicipal home rule, which also included a
prohibition on local laws with respect to
municipalities, the percentage of local laws
was reduced but it still continues to be the
predominant product of the General As-
sembly.
In 1966, for instance, 55 percent of the
laws were local laws and in 1967, 52 per-
cent.
I have already referred to these tables.
I will not dwell on them at length. Table
1 on page 41 shows that more than a third
of the local laws enacted by the legislature
for the counties in 1966 and 1967 would not
have been passed by the General Assem-
bly had there been mandatory home rule
in effect at that time. This would have re-
duced the percentage of local legislation in
the 1967 session from 52 to 34 percent.
While many of the remainder of the so-
called local laws shown on Table 1 may
not be truly local in nature, the adoption
of recommended 7.06 plus other changes
proposed for the new constitution such as
the unified judicial article, should eliminate
another 141 local bills.
The whole effect of this procedure would
reduce the local legislation to 15 percent
and these, as I said, are not all true local
laws.
The detriment that the Committee sees
in pubic local laws is not diversity of legis-
lation from county to county; rather, it is
that enactment of local laws by the Gen-
eral Assembly usurps the function of the
duly elected county officials and makes it
difficult for the citizen to fix responsibility
for legislation. The Committee believes that
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the General Assembly should devote its
time and ability primarily to matters of
statewide import and leave to the county
governments the handling of their internal
affairs.
The first sentence of the section reads
"Except as otherwise provided in this Con-
stitution and except with respect to ap-
propriations and laws providing for and
regulating the powers of departments,
agencies or instrumentalities of the State
performing a state and not a local func-
tion." The limitation appears in the next
clause. "The General Assembly shall enact
no public laws and shall enact only public
general laws, which are defined as laws
which in their terms and effects apply
throughout the State."
I have already stated that the purpose
of the opening phrase is to clarify that the
phrase "by law" does not necessarily re-
quire a public general law. There may be
other limitations in the Constitution de-
scribing the law required in particular sec-
tions. In section 8.01-1, I think the Finance
Committee has recommended that a special
uniformity be required in each case.
The exception for appropriations is in-
tended to provide flexibility to permit the
State to continue its present system of re-
allocating taxes to the various subdivisions
in accordance with their needs.
The exception for state agencies is
needed to make clear that the General As-
sembly may provide for state agencies; it
is not specifically authorized in the Consti-
tution to provide for these by law. How-
ever, the state agency must perform a state
and not a local function.
The Maryland Port Authority, for in-
stance, performs a state function, even
though one of the things it does is regu-
late traffic in Baltimore Harbor. An agency,
operating state parks or recreation areas
even though they may be located in just
one county, would be seving a state func-
tion.
A state board regulating paperhangers
in just one county would violate the intent
of the section because it really is not a
state function. A majority of the Commit-
tee is convinced that the General Assembly
through public general law may reach prob-
lems of statewide significance even though
they may exist in one or more, but not
all counties, and that the requirement that
the General Assembly act through public
law is not unduly restrictive. However, in
order to provide some additional flexibility
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