power to determine when a bill will be
presented to him. As Governor J. Millard
Tawes indicated in his testimony before
the Committee on the Executive Depart-
ment, an administrative practice has de-
veloped whereby the governor's office,
upon receipt of a passed bill, does not
have it presented to the governor, but
rather refers it to the attorney general
for his consideration until the governor
decides what action to take.
The power of the governor to deter-
mine when a bill will be presented has
far-reaching consequences. Prior to 1950
the governor, merely by not permitting a
bill to be presented until after the Gen-
eral Assembly had adjourned and then
not signing it, or vetoing it, could prevent
any possibility of the General Assembly
overriding him. To assure the General
Assembly an opportunity of overriding,
the governor's veto, the following para-
graph was added to Section 17 by a con-
stitutional amendment proposed in 1949
and ratified in 1950.
"Any bill which is vetoed by the
Governor following the adjournment
of the General Assembly, or any bill
which fails to become a law by reason
of not having been signed by the Gov-
ernor following adjournment of the
General Assembly, shall be returned to
the House in which it originated, im-
mediately after said House shall have
organized at the next regular or special
session of the General Assembly. Said
bill may then be reconsidered accord-
ing to the procedure specified herein-
above. If the bill is passed over the
veto of the Governor, it shall take
effect on June 1 following, unless the
bill is an emergency measure to take
effect when passed."16
16 Md. Laws of 1949, ch. 714, ratified Nov.
7, 1950.
158
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In 1959 this paragraph was modified
by the addition of the following
sentence :
"No such vetoed bill shall be re-
turned to the Legislature when a new
General Assembly of Maryland has
been elected and sworn since the pas-
sage of the vetoed bill."17
Hence, Section 17 in its present form
does assure that during the first three
years of the legislator's terms, the Gen-
eral Assembly will have an opportunity
to override a veto or a "pocket" veto,
although it gives the governor the ability
to postpone the effective date substan-
tially. For example, assume that the newly
elected General Assembly passed a bill on
January 25, 1967, with a designated
effective date of June 1, 1967. The gov-
ernor, by not suffering the bill to be
presented to him until after the legis-
lature had adjourned, could effectively
prevent being overridden at the regular
1967 session. At the 1968 session of the
legislature, assuming the governor's veto
or "pocket" veto is overridden, the bill
would not become effective until June 1,
1968. Furthermore, Section 17 in its
present form permits the governor, by
not permitting a bill to be presented to
him during the legislative term, to fore-
close being overridden if it is the fourth
and last year of the legislators' term.
It is submitted that when the governor
has had a reasonable time to consider
bills passed by the General Assembly, he
should be required either to sign them
into law or veto and return them during
the session in which they are enacted.
ITEM VETO
In 1891 Section 17 was amended to
give the governor an item veto over
17 Md. Laws of 1959, ch. 664, ratified Nov.
8, 1960.
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