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ridiculous to me. I think that this Conven-
tion treated the small counties well when
they gave them a superior court judge, and
for that reason I am going to vote for the
reconsideration of this amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any other dele-
gate desire to speak in opposition?
Delegate Bennett.
DELEGATE BENNETT: A parliamen-
tary inquiry: I take it that a motion that
the Committee of the Whole rise now is in
order. If I should make that motion and it
should pass, would this motion to recon-
sider be pending business when the Com-
mittee on the Whole reconvenes?
THE CHAIRMAN: The Chair thinks so.
DELEGATE BENNETT: Mr. Chair-
man, I move that the Committee now rise.
THE CHAIRMAN: May I suggest to
the delegate that we have present nearly
all of the Convention at this time, and
have spent some 40 or 45 minutes in de-
bating this issue. Is the motion to rise
seconded?
(Whereupon, the motion was duly
seconded.)
THE CHAIRMAN: The Chair calls on
Delegate Powers for any comment as
Chairman of the Committee on Calendar
and Agenda.
DELEGATE POWERS: Mr. Chairman,
it would appear that in a very few more
minutes the entire matter would be dis-
posed of, and it would be desirable to main-
tain the continuity. I am opposed to the
motion.
THE CHAIRMAN: For what reason
does Delegate Murray rise?
DELEGATE MURRAY: To speak in
opposition to the motion.
THE CHAIRMAN: The motion to rise?
DELEGATE MURRAY: No, sir.
THE CHAIRMAN: The motion to rise
has precedence.
Are you ready for the question?
(Call for the question.)
The question arises on the motion that
the Committee of the Whole rise. A vote
Aye is a vote in favor of the motion to
rise. A vote No is a vote against. Cast
your votes.
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Has every delegate voted? Does any dele-
gate desire to change his vote?
(There was no response.)
For what purpose does Delegate Weide-
meyer rise?
DELEGATE WEIDEMEYER: To speak
in opposition just as soon as the Chair has
ruled that the motion to rise has failed.
THE CHAIRMAN: The clerk will re-
cord the vote.
There being 18 votes in the affirmative
and 107 in the negative, the motion is lost.
The Chair recognizes Delegate Weide-
meyer to speak in opposition to the motion
to reconsider.
DELEGATE WEIDEMEYER: Mr.
President, members of the Convention:
sometimes when we arrive at conclusions
we have to take a lot of statistics and work
on them, and I am afraid that when section
5.10 was drafted, probably the Case statis-
tics came into strong play; but I would
say that in this instance for service to the
public that the Case statistics present a
very poor case. I think that we have over-
looked one salient factor in all of this : that
the district court judge is not there for the
purpose of conserving money or placed just
to conserve money, but he is placed there
to serve the people.
For example, if they should decide that
by statistics four counties on the Eastern
Shore would be entitled to two district
judges, it stands to reason that those two
district judges serving the four counties
could not be in all four counties all of the
time. Consider a man from Montgomery
County or Baltimore County or Anne
Arundel or Prince George's, or even Balti-
more City, going over to Ocean City, and
he speeds up in Wicomico, is picked up
and charged with speeding. If he feels he is
falsely charged and wants to defend the
case, and he says to the officer, "Well, I
can come back and stand trial on Thurs-
day; I can come back to Wicomico County;"
the officer might have to say, "Well, you
can come back on Thursday, but you will
have to drive 50 miles more down into
Somerset County, or over into Worcester
County."
So that man, if he wants to, has to drive
the additional fifty miles, and when the
officer tells him that, it is because we placed
it in the constitution that each county
should not have its district judge. That
man is going to say to the officer, con-
found that constitution.
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