HOUSE BILL 346

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT

Unofficial Copy 2002 Regular Session
Pl 21rl262

By: Delegates Rosenberg and McIntosh

Introduced and read first time: January 25, 2002
Assigned to: Commerce and Government Matters

Committee Report: Favorable

House action: Adopted

Read second time: March 5, 2002

CHAPTER 588

1 AN ACT concerning

2 Constitutional Amendment - Emergency Legislation - Scope

3 FOR the purpose of proposing an amendment to the Maryland Constitution that

4 would authorize the General Assembly to pass emergency laws creating or

5 abolishing any office or changing the term or duties of any officer; and

6 submitting this amendment to the qualified voters of the State of Maryland for

7 their adoption or rejection.

8 BY proposing an amendment to the Constitution of Maryland

9 Article XVI - The Referendum

10 Section 2

11 SECTION 1. BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF

12 MARYLAND, (Three-fifths of all the members elected to each of the two Houses

13 concurring), That it be proposed that the Constitution of Maryland read as follows:

14 Article XVI - The Referendum

15 2.

16 No law enacted by the General Assembly shall take effect until the first day of

17 June next after the session at which it may be passed, unless it contains a Section

18 declaring such law an emergency law and necessary for the immediate preservation of

19 the public health or safety and is passed upon a yea and nay vote supported by

20 three-fifths of all the members elected to each of the two Houses of the General

21 Assembly. The effective date of a law other than an emergency law may be extended

22 as provided in Section 3(b) hereof. If before said first day of June there shall have

23 been filed with the Secretary of the State a petition to refer to a vote of the people any