696                                LAWS OF MARYLAND                       [CH. 493

AND SHALL HAVE NO FURTHER EFFECT. IF THE PRO-
POSED CHARTER IS REJECTED BY THE VOTERS, THE CODE
QUESTION UNDER THIS ARTICLE SHALL BE SUBMITTED TO
THE VOTERS AT THE GENERAL ELECTION TWO YEARS
LATER, AND NO CHARTER QUESTION UNDER ARTICLE HA
SHALL THEN BE SUBMITTED TO THE VOTERS. AT THAT
GENERAL ELECTION.

Section 3. Except as otherwise provided in this Article, a code
county may enact, amend, or repeal a public local law of that county,
following the procedure in this Article.

Section 4. Except as otherwise provided in this Article, the General
Assembly shall not enact, amend, or repeal a public local law which is
special or local in its terms or effect within a code county. The
General Assembly may enact, amend, or repeal public local laws
applicable to code counties only by general enactments which in term
and effect apply alike to all code counties in one or more of the classes
provided for in Section 5 of this Article.

Section 5. The General Assembly, by law, shall classify all code
counties by grouping them into not more than four classes based either
upon population as determined in the most recent Federal or State
census or upon such other criteria as determined by the General
Assembly to be appropriate. Not more than one such grouping of
code counties into four (or fewer) classes may be in effect at any
one time, and the enactment of any grouping of code counties into
four (or fewer) classes repeals any other such grouping then in
effect. Code counties may be classified only as provided in this section.

Section 6. A code county may enact, amend, or repeal a public local
law of that county by a resolution of the board of county commis-
sioners. The General Assembly may amplify the provisions of this
section by general law in any manner not inconsistent with this
Article.

Section 7. Any action of a code county in the enactment, amend-
ment, or repeal of a public local law is subject to a referendum of the
voters in the county, as in this section provided. The enactment,
amendment, or repeal shall be effective unless a petition of the regis-
tered voters of the county requires that it be submitted to a refer-
endum of the voters in the county. The General Assembly shall
amplify the provisions of this section by general law in any manner
not inconsistent with this Article, except that in any event the number
of signatures required on such a petition shall not be fewer than five
percentum (5%) of the voters in a county registered for county and
State elections.

Section 8. Notwithstanding any other provisions of this Article, the
General Assembly has exclusive power to enact, amend, or repeal any
local law for a code county which (1) authorizes or places a maximum
limit upon the rate of property taxes which may be imposed by the
code county; or (2) authorizes or regulates the maximum amount of
indebtedness which may be incurred by the code county. Public local
laws enacted by the General Assembly under this section prevail
over any public local laws enacted by the code county under other
sections in this Article.