|
DELEGATE MOSER: I speak, Mr.
Chairman, in favor of the amendment, but
obviously not as a Committee chairman,
because we have not considered this, spe-
cifically.
I also wanted to clarify one thing. I had
thought I had answered in response to one
of Delegate Case's questions yesterday that
a civil unit would be permitted the power
to tax only if it consisted of properly
elected representatives for that purpose.
That is the only instance when it would be
permitted under this provision. I wanted to
clarify that.
There is an additional limitation on the
power to tax in the Constitution, and I
think to be consistent, Delegate Case's
amendment has to be adopted, because an
intergovernmental authority might have
properly elected representatives elected for
that purpose. The important thing to re-
member is they are not being granted an
unlimited power to tax. This would depend
upon the law that created them.
Now, is the law says they are not going
to have the power to tax, then they do not
have the power to tax. It is simply, as I
said earlier, a clarifying amendment. I do
not think it changes anything substantially,
and I do not quite see the problems that
were mentioned by Delegate Clagett in this
proposal.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any further
delegate desire to speak in opposition?
Delegate Marion.
DELEGATE MARION: Mr. Chairman,
perhaps I do not see everything that this
amendment proposes to do, but it appears
to me that what this would do is to blur
the only basic distinction, except in name,
that I have seen so far between an inter-
governmental authority and a regional gov-
ernment. It would seem to me that if both
had the power to tax, if both were gov-
erned by popularly elected representatives
of that particular unit of government, then
the only difference that we will have cre-
ated between them is that such an inter-
governmental authority with power to tax
is not subject to the referendum provisions,
even the permissive referendum provisions
which we have already written into sec-
tion 7.10.
I see no purpose in this. Why do we
need two things which are called by differ-
ent names, but which could have the same
functions? The General Assembly then
could create an intergovernmental author-
ity to submit that to the referendum of
|
the affected area, but the authority would
have the power to tax and be governed by
popularly elected representatives.
THE CHAIRMAN: The Chair recog-
nizes Delegate Hardwicke to speak in favor
of the amendment.
DELEGATE HARDWICKE: I have a
question, Mr. Chairman.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any other Dele-
gate desire to speak in favor?
To whom is your question directed, Dele-
gate Hardwicke?
DELEGATE HARDWICKE: To Dele-
gate Moser, Mr. Chairman.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Moser, will
you respond to a question?
DELEGATE MOSER: Yes, sir.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Hardwicke.
DELEGATE HARDWICKE: I realize
this question may plow some of the same
ground we plowed yesterday, but I think
that the Committee of the Whole should
perhaps give more consideration to these
terms than we have given. With regard to
that, I would like to ask Delegate Moser
to explain further the concept of multi-
county government, vis-a-vis popularly
elected representative local government,
vis-a-vis intergovernmental authorities.
The amendment which we adopted this
morning makes it clear that there is some-
thing called "multi-county governmental
units," which is apparently the broadest
kind of category, but within that category
is something called "intergovernmental
authorities."
The amendment would grant to this one
part of the whole category the power to
tax, if that authority is popularly elected.
How does that term differ from the
others? Why shouldn't you say that a
multi-county governmental unit, if popu-
larly elected, should not have the power to
impose the tax?
In other words, why are we picking
one of the subdivisions within the concept
of multi-county governmental units and
not the other?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Moser.
DELEGATE MOSER: The only multi-
county governmental units which I can
think of are either authorities or regional
governments, are those such as I men-
|
