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DELEGATE MOSER: No.
DELEGATE JAMES: The legislature
rule would be paramount?
DELEGATE MOSER: Yes, the legis-
lative rule would be paramount. The con-
cept we are trying to get through is that
these matters hopefully will be resolved by
agreement on the local level, but if they
are not resolved on the local level, the Gen-
eral Assembly can provide procedures for
their resolution.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Taylor.
DELEGATE L. TAYLOR: Mr. Chair-
man, I refer to section 7.05. I am trying
to understand the shared powers approach.
On page 22 of the Committee Memorandum
it is stated in the last sentence, lines 3, 4
and 5, that the need to interpret express
powers action will be eliminated by use of
shared powers.
I wondered if, for instance, Baltimore
County or any county passed a minimum
wage law or meat inspection law, could
both the county and the State operate
within this same field of meat inspection,
police powers, or minimum wage?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Moser.
DELEGATE MOSER: So long as they
were not in conflict and so long as the Gen-
eral Assembly did not say the county could
not do it, they could operate in the meat
inspection area. Most certainly they could
operate in the police power area, because
this is very broad.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Scanlan.
DELEGATE SCANLAN: I have either
a parliamentary inquiry or point of order,
Mr. Chairman, if I may state it.
I for one have been tremendously im-
pressed by the patient, brilliant, and thor-
oughly enlightened presentation of the
Chairman of the Committee on Local Gov-
ernment in explaining a very difficult, com-
prehensive report on one of the most diffi-
cult areas that this Convention has to deal
with.
He has now been at it for three hours. I
suggest even the mighty Homer nods.
I know it is difficult for the Committee
of the Whole to recess temporarily, but
surely there must be some way by a proper
parliamentary device that Mr. Moser could
be given at least a ten or fifteen minute
break.
THE CHAIRMAN: I would suggest the
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simplest device would be to end the ques-
tions.
(Laughter.)
He has probably pretty well covered the
area. If there are no further questions, we
will let him at least sit down.
DELEGATE BYRNES: Mr. Moser,
keeping in mind lines 17 and 18 of section
7.05, subsection (2), and lines 36 through
40 of section 7.06, is there are question
that the General Assembly might decide
that they are going to take from five coun-
ties, for example, the authority to legislate
in the area, for example, of sanitation, and
place that authority in itself as a govern-
mental unit?
Put another way, could the General As-
sembly simply take from the five counties
certain governmental responsibility and
place it either in existing state agencies or
perhaps create a state agency to handle
those problems?
DELEGATE MOSER: You changed the
question, I think, in asking it.
DELEGATE BYRNES: The second
question.
DELEGATE MOSER: The answer is,
and has to be, this I suppose: that if the
General Assembly wants to transfer a par-
ticular function to another governmental
unit, whatever it may be, if it is a govern-
mental unit, then the legislature does have
the power to do so. This is the only way,
for instance, that authorities can operate.
It would only be true if the General As-
sembly placed it exclusively in another unit.
If the legislature withdrew it and placed
it exclusively in another governmental unit,
it would have to say just that, because
ordinarily when powers are granted they
are not passed on exclusively.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Byrnes.
DELEGATE BYRNES: What troubles
me, of course, is your definition of public
general law.
DELEGATE MOSER: This is true. I
think you aptly point out a very necessary
state power which is retained in the Gen-
eral Assembly, that it have the power to
set up multi-county authority. For instance,
what it has done, let us say for the Mary-
land Port Authority, in effect, is to with-
draw the power to regulate the traffic in
Baltimore Harbor from Anne Arundel
County, Baltimore County, and Baltimore
City, and given it to the Maryland Port
Authority. Without this provision or, with-
out something like this, it might not have
been able to do this.
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