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I do hope that this Convention will vote
down the substituted amendment, will then
vote down the amendment itself, and will
preserve provisions 7.07, 7.08 and 7.09 as
they are set forth in the Committee Rec-
ommendation.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any other dele-
gate desire to speak in favor of Amend-
ment No. 9?
(There was no response.)
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any delegate
desire to speak in opposition?
Delegate Gullett.
DELEGATE GULLETT: Mr. Chairman,
the proposal of Delegate Macdonald is 180
degrees different from the Committee's rec-
ommendations on two very major subjects,
which Mr. Moser has just mentioned. One
of them with regard to charter powers says,
"as set forth in its charter." This would
have a very drastic effect upon municipali-
ties which do not have particular powers
set forth in their charters that they might
wish to use in the future. You could not
enumerate these powers in the charter,
moreover, you should not have to. We went
to great length on the floor yesterday to
make this eminently clear to the Conven-
tion, that not only were the existing powers
of charter powers to be retained by the
Committee's proposal, but also those powers
that were available to municipalities at the
time of the adoption of this Constitution.
Second, it provides a unilateral veto on
the part of the county on annexation. In
our viewpoint this is no more fair than
the unilateral ability to annex on the part
of the municipality.
We do not believe a municipality should
go out willy-nilly and annex without re-
gard to the people and without regard to
the territory. Nor do we believe the county
should have unilateral veto over this. There
should be a sitting down together, and this
is what the Committee's draft provides.
I think it is a very fair compromise and
I would urge that this amendment be de-
feated.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any other dele-
gate desire to speak in favor of the amend-
ment?
Delegate Clagett.
DELEGATE CLAGETT: Mr. Chairman,
I do not rise in favor of the amendment,
but in opposition to the amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: You do not have the
floor, then.
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Does any delegate desire to speak in
favor?
If not, you have the floor, Delegate Mac-
donald.
DELEGATE MACDONALD: Mr. Chair-
man, with regard to the statement of the
Chairman of the Committee, concerning
the final vote. It was 18 to 1, or 17 to 1,
with Macdonald in the negative. I might
also point out for the benefit of the Com-
mittee of the Whole that on this trouble-
some problem of municipal corporations,
the Committee took 43 votes at various
times during the deliberations. I have the
action journal here.
At one time, on vote number 46, the
committee voted 16 to 0 that existing and
new municipalities should derive their
structure and powers from the same source.
The Committee's recommendation, which is
before you here today, is not in accord with
that vote. The Committee vacillated on
this matter many times, and it was quite
a struggle.
I submit that the amendment which I
have offered is very close to the proposal
in the Eney Commission draft. As a mat-
ter of fact, it differs only in that it gives
municipal corporations a little more pro-
tection, and preserves the status quo more
than the draft set forth in the Commis-
sion's proposal.
I would urge that you vote in favor of
this amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: The Chair now
recognizes Delegate Clagett to speak in
opposition.
DELEGATE CLAGETT: Mr. Chairman,
I am picking up right where Delegate Mac-
donald left off.
As you know, and as probably the Com-
mittee knows, I drafted section 7.14 of the
Commission's draft aided and abetted by
Delegate Adkins and others. At a very late
hour up there at the Brown Estate, after
we had been in session for three continuous
days, we were very proud of what we had
been able to accomplish because we felt it
was consistent with the broad grant of
shared powers to the counties, and this
was solving a knotty problem within the
boundaries of those counties.
Therefore, it is with great reluctance
that I rise in opposition to Delegate Mac-
donald's amendment, but I do so in sup-
port of the work of the Committee, where
we battled back and forth with this very
knotty problem on some 43 different ac-
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