General Assembly History of the General Assembly/21

Among the more important measures were
those permitting a right turn on red traffic light
signals, increasing the retail sales tax, requiring
open meetings, requiring hospitals to offer
females cancer examinations, including in the
bribery prohibitions multicounty officers and
employees, adding an additional judge to the
Court of Special Appeals, rewriting the rape and
sexual offences statutes, encouraging the use of
school buses to aid the elderly, limiting property
tax assessment increases, raising the ceiling on
residential mortgage rates, creating an Agricul-
tural Land Preservation Program, specifying the
judicial authority for wiretapping, permitting
maternity disability benefits, permitting the
dispension of generic drugs, creating a registry
for abused children and a home for battered
spouses and their children, permitting private
citizens to file conflicts-of-interest charges
against certain State employees, and revising the
Annotated Code to enact a Transportation Arti-
cle.

Three proposals were made to amend the
Constitution of Maryland. Among these were a
proposal requiring that when a proposed amend-
ment only effects one subdivision it must receive
local as well as statewide approval before be-
coming effective, another proposal providing a
new article in which all provisions of limited du-
ration that implement a constitutional amend-
ment would be found, and a proposal correcting
constitutional provisions that are obsolete, un-
constitutional, or duplicative and also making a
technical revision.

A HISTORY OF THE 1978 SESSION OF
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY

The General Assembly met in regular session
on January II, 1978, and adjourned on April 10,
1978.

A total of 3,484 bills was introduced of which
1,305 were Senate bills and 2,179 were House
bills. Of the 1,305 Senate bills, 494 were passed
by both Houses; of this latter number, 432 were
signed by the Acting Governor and 62 were
vetoed. Of the 2,179 House bills introduced, 683
were passed by both Houses, and of this latter
number 585 were signed by the Acting Governor
and 98 were vetoed.

Joint Resolutions introduced totaled 202 with
81 in the Senate and 121 in the House. Of these,
27 Senate and 36 House Joint Resolutions were
passed by both Houses. Twenty-two Senate and
30 House Joint Resolutions were signed by the
Acting Governor

One bill vetoed by the Governor following the
1977 Session was passed by both Houses over his
veto in this Session.

The budget bill enacted at this Session for the
fiscal year ending June 30, 1979, amounted to
$4,313,089,519. The General Construction Loan
bill passed was for a total of $56,790,000.

Among the more important measures were
those creating the Environmental Standing Act,
requiring establishment of certain emission
standards, establishing statewide Building Energy
Utilization Guidelines, providing funds for the Ag-
ricultural Land Preservation Fund, regulating real
property assessments, creating the Homeowners'
Tax Credit Program, extending property tax
assessments, authorizing the itemizing of
deductions on tax returns, allowing tax deductions
for household and dependent care services, impos-
ing a sales tax on carry-out food and thus
exempting fuel rate adjustment charges from taxa-
tion, providing standards for evaluation of fuel ad-
justment rate justification, requiring that State
departments attempt to purchase a certain per-
centage of their goods and services from minority
businesses, regulating layaway sales, prohibiting
price discrimination by distributors of gasoline
products, providing a system for recycling used
oil, providing for regulation of electric metering
and ignition devices, requiring the purchase of
American steel for public use, instituting a study
of eliminating mandatory retirement, prohibiting
the use of telephone dialing systems for solicita-
tion, providing for operation of medical assistance
programs, granting to certain courts authority in
disposition of property in divorce and annulment
cases, permitting the use of amygdalin as a cancer
treatment, requiring health insurance to cover the
cost of midwives, creating the Maryland Office for
Children and Youth, creating boards of review of
foster care for children, providing protection for
neglected children, prohibiting the abduction of a
child from its lawful custodian by a relative, creat-
ing child pornography statutes, amending the Cap-
ital Punishment statutes, providing issuance of
provisional driver's licenses, funding the planning
and construction of the Maryland Concert Center
in Baltimore, providing for legislative evaluation
of certain State offices and entities ("Sunset" Act),
and revising the Annotated Code to enact an Edu-
cation Article.

Several proposals were made to amend the
Constitution of Maryland. Among them were
proposals authorizing the General Assembly to
enact laws that mandate the Governor in the
preparation of the annual budget to provide for
the funding of specific programs at specified