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General Assembly should so decide, the law
establishing this popularly elected repre-
sentative government is passed by a three-
fifths vote, and by some form of emerg-
ency or non-suspendable legislation it could
put into operation in 1972 a regional
government.
At the same time, the people should
have and would have the right to petition
this to referendum, so that in 1974 we
could conceivably have on the ballot a ref-
erendum to remove this government and a
provision to elect the representatives.
I maintain all this can be eliminated if
we insert the word "shall" and make it
mandatory for such government to be
placed on the ballot. Then there will be
no problem as to this.
I feel also that there is no provision in
this particular unit for change of regional
government instruments. I believe the draft
Commission language did have some pro-
vision. I see no provision in here similar
to section 7.04 which permits a change in
instrument of government.
As a matter of fact, I don't see any
terminology referring to the instrument of
regional government. I am left quite in the
dark as to what this would mean.
I maintain that in this particular area by
leaving it in the nebulous or permissive
area of "may," we are opening ourselves
to a tremendous amount of difficulty and
problems. Even though I understand the
legislators would in the best interests of
the State provide only where they feel it
is necessary, it is conceivable the people
would not agree wtih it.
So, I respectfully suggest that the change
be made and the General Assembly pro-
vide for mandatory referenda for regional
government establishment as well as they
do in section 7.02 provide for mandatory
referenda to the county establishment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Moser.
DELEGATE MOSER: I am completely
mystified by Delegate Cardin's explanation
of this change from "may" to "shall." I
don't believe that if she intends to supply
here some inadequacy, if that is her pur-
pose, in the suffrage and elections article,
that really this would do what she intends
to do.
If there is some other amendment to
7.10, to include the word boundaries, or
something like that, that is one thing. If
there is some intention to provide in the
suffrage and elections article for some kind
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of referendum other than what is provided
there now, then it should be provided.
The only thing I can see that the change
in this one little word, maybe it is a big
word, this "may" to "shall" would do, is
this: it would require the General Assem-
bly each time it were about to establish
some sort of popularly elected representa-
tive regional government, to provide for a
referendum. That is to say, it would have
to do so.
This is completely and absolutely con-
trary to what the committee intends.
If I may say so, the way this amendment
was put it can lead to large amounts of
confusion.
I think this is designed specifically to re-
quire the legislature to have the voters ap-
prove any type of regional government.
Let me talk to that point, because that
is really what it does. Let's face it. It man-
dates this referendum upon the creation of .
a regional government.
I think that we have all come to under-
stand that one of the most important aims
of the Convention here has been to
strengthen the General Assembly. The local
government provisions seek to do this,
while at the same time strengthening local
government. But the Local Government
Committee does not believe that any county
should be so strengthened as to be able to
prevent the General Assembly from effec-
tively dealing with problems which extend
beyond county boundaries.
One request of some county commission-
ers and county executives was that no so-
called popularly elected representative re-
gional government be created by the Gen-
eral Assembly without either, (1) the
consent of the county government; or (2)
the consent of the voters within each county.
Either way, the result is the same.
I will give the rest of the speech possi-
bly later on. The amendment gives one
county a veto over action of the General
Assembly which may affect the rest of the
State.
It is difficult, really, to get into the de-
tail that we have to get into in this. I
want to simply point out that what we have
here is a very simple thing. If the General
Assembly wanted to create a popularly
elected mass transit authority, and provide
have just three people provided to govern
the authority, they couldn't do so unless
it submitted the question to referendum of
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