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briefly share with you an experience, I
think it will be helpful.
In 1959 and 1960 I was chairman of a
commission which ultimately drew the
legislation for the Baltimore Metropolitan
Transit Authority. I want to tell the mem-
bers of this committee that there is no more
fascinating psychological scare term than
"regional government."
I want to tell you, any kind of regional
government arrangement has enough hur-
dles to jump in a General Assembly with-
out adding to it the additional burden of
mandatory referendum.
In that particular era, each state senator,
of course, had the power of veto, and I can
assure you that had it not been for some
considerable arm-twisting, we would have
not had, not only the Metropolitan Transit
Authority, but the Port Authority, as well.
It would seem to me that it would be an
unmerciful thing, a crippling blow to the
development of regional government to re-
quire a referendum on all occasions.
I feel that there is enough built-in, innate
resistance against regional government;
people come forward with the fact that it
has foreign origins that exist in nondemo-
cratic nations, they have all sorts of de-
vices to impede passage of valuable legis-
lation. I submit that to require mandatory
legislation in all cases would simply be to
set the cause of regional government back
decades to say the least.
I would urge you to vote against this
amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Any delegate desire
to speak in favor of the amendment?
The Chair recognizes Delegate Rybczyn-
ski.
DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: I will take
the place of one speaking in favor but I
really want to speak in the place of peace-
maker in this case. I think what is really
intended here by the maker of the amend-
ment — I hope I am saying this correctly —
is to give the people the opportunity at
referendum, I suggest we go all the way
back to the debate on Friday when we
talked about the very first sentence of the
S&E Report 1.
I strongly suggest that in this case an-
other meeting of our two very able com-
mittee chairmen will be very helpful so
that on second reading there might possi-
bly be some new thought brought forth on
this floor.
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Meantime, for the first time since I have
been down here I am going to pass on a
vote.
THE CHAIRMAN: The Chair recog-
nizes Delegate Boyles to speak in opposition
to the amendment.
DELEGATE BOYLES: The Committee
on Local Government worked hard to set
up a system of local government in this
Article to strengthen the counties. But we
did not do this at the expense of setting
up twenty-four independent kingdoms or
republics in the State of Maryland.
If we limit the power of the General As-
sembly with this amendment to do what it
would like to do in the case of larger than
county problems, we have taken from the
General Assembly a valuable tool.
I realize the desire of the delegate from
Baltimore County is to safeguard what she
feels are the rights of people from Balti-
more County. But I think the rights of the
people of the State of Maryland transcend
the rights of the people of Baltimore
County.
THE CHAIRMAN: Any other delegate
desire to speak in favor of the amendment?
Delegate Chabot.
DELEGATE CHABOT: Yes, sir. The
ways in which this amendment could tie
the hands of the General Assembly trying
to proceed responsibly have been indicated.
I suggest also that this amendment would
in no practical way tie the hands of a
General Assembly that was trying to pro-
ceed in an irresponsible manner.
The sentence as written with the amend-
ment would not specify the area within
which the referendum must be held. It
would not specify the nature of the vote
needed to affirm the law or the amount of
vote needed to strike down the law.
It would suggest that there must be more
than one referendum held on the matter
without specifying whether or not there
must in fact be more than one and, if so,
how many.
In short, I suggest that the amendment
would not at all accomplish the objectives
of the maker of the amendment but would
only create problems which the maker of
the amendment probably did not intend to
create by the amendment. Consequently, I
would suggest the amendment be voted
down.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Moser,
would you yield to a question?
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