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Article 23A, which is the municipality sec-
tion, as part of the schedule accompanying
the constitution.
THE CHAIRMAN: Which are you re-
ferring to when you say "schedule"?
DELEGATE MOSER: The schedule of
laws.
THE CHAIRMAN: The schedule of
legislation?
DELEGATE MOSER: Yes.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Maurer.
DELEGATE MAURER: I have a ques-
tion about section 7.06 and particularly the
sentence on page 6 of the committee report
referring to the difference.
Question one: Under the natural re-
sources item we adopted this morning,
could the General Assembly pass laws
which contain county-to-county variations
and thus be exempted from section 7.06?
DELEGATE MOSER: I think the an-
swer to that question is yes,' with some
minor limitation. The Local Government
Committee intends that where the phrase
"by law" is used anywhere in the consti-
tution the law is subject to whatever limita-
tions are provided in the section that uses
the term "by law". Therefore, if under the
natural resources provision, the General
Assembly operated in just one area, let's
say one county, and passed a law relating
to, if I may refer to them, oysters, it could
do this in a limited area wherever the prob-
lem arose. The important point is that the
section which we passed this morning fixes
this aspect entirely and clearly as a state
function; it does not mean it is a function
denied the counties.
Let me qualify my explanation in this
regard. It is not intended that under a pro-
vision such as the natural resources pro-
vision the legislature could interfere with
the affairs or government, if I may use
that expression of one county directly by
mandating it to do this or to provide that.
So long as it is a state function, I think
variation would be pretty clearly permitted.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Maurer.
DELEGATE MAURER: I would like to
raise a question in the area of public edu-
cation. In the present Constitution and
presumably in an article which will be pre-
sented to us, public education would be a
matter left to the General Assembly.
Assuming the wording was that the Gen-
eral Assembly "shall by law" or "the State
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shall by law provide free public schools",
would this also provide opportunity for
county-to-county variation in setting up
school boards and thus exempting this area
from 7.06 and permitting the kind of varia-
tion which now exists, that is, an elected
school board in Montgomery County and
various kinds of appointive boards else-
where?
DELEGATE MOSER: Yes, I think it
would.
DELEGATE MAURER: Would it then
invalidate the comments you made that un-
der local option the county council in Mont-
gomery County could decide whether there
would be an elected or appointed school
board?
DELEGATE MOSER: I think the Gen-
eral Assembly could do it either way. That
is to say, they could provide for it them-
selves as they do not in Article 77, or if
they wanted to, it could permit the local
areas to provide that if they wish.
THE CHAIRMAN: May the Chair com-
ment with respect to the first question
raised by Delegate Maurer. It is quite obvi-
ous that in some committee recommenda-
tions which have been filed and not yet con-
sidered and in some of the committee rec-
ommendations which have been considered
by the Committee of the Whole, the ex-
pression "by law" has been used without
clear indication as to whether the intention
is by public general law or by law other
than public general law.
For this reason, we have requested the
Committee on Style to pay particular at-
tention to this point so that here will be
uniformity in the entire Constitution with
respect to the meaning of the term "by
law", "by public general law", and so forth.
Delegate Case.
DELEGATE CASE: Mr. Chairman, in
section 7.10, the establishment of multi-
county governmental units, I note that the
General Assembly may provide by law for
a change of boundaries, et cetera, of vari-
ous new types of government.
The section goes on to provide for a per-
missive referendum, in line 42 through 45,
inclusive. The permissive referendum seems
to me to refer to the government and not
to the boundaries; I am wondering if I am
correct in this.
DELEGATE MOSER: It is intended by
the Committee to refer to any phase of
setting up the government or affecting its
powers. It would be the Committee's inten-
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