SPIRO T. AGNEW, Governor                        949

under the new subtitle "Pre-Filing of Legislative Bills," to estab-
lish a procedure for the filing of legislative bills and joint resolu-
tions in advance of any regular legislative session of the General
Assembly and relating to such procedure and the duties of the
State Department of Legislative Reference in respect to such pre-
filing.

Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland,
That new Section 43 be and it is hereby added to Article 40 of the
Annotated Code of Maryland (1965 Replacement Volume), title
"General Assembly," to follow immediately after Section 42 thereof
and to be under the new subtitle "Pre-Filing of Legislative Bills,"
and to read as follows :

43.

(a) Any member of the General Assembly may request the intro-
duction of any bill or joint resolution in the General Assembly by
prefixing the bill or joint resolution with the State Department of
Legislative Reference in advance of any regular session of the
General Assembly as provided in this section. The request shall be
made by the member in writing to the Department stating the
sponsors of the bill and enclosing an outline or summary of the
bill or joint resolution to be prefiled. Such a request shall NOT be
made only during the period beginning on November 15 of any year

prior to any regular session and ending on the last day prior to the

opening of a regular session in the following year, except in any year
in which an election for members of the General Assembly is held. -,

when the request may be made no earlier than December 1 of such

year. After a request has been submitted under this section, and

after the bill has been approved by the members, the bill shall not
be cancelled or withdrawn by the sponsor. The request shall con-
stitute the authority for the Department to prefile the bill or joint
resolution for introduction.

(b)   The Department shall keep during the pre-filing period author-
ized herein a list of all bills and joint resolutions filed with it under
this section for introduction in the General Assembly. The list shall
be kept in serial order with one series of numbers for Senate Bills,
one for Senate Joint Resolutions, one for House Bills and one for
House Joint Resolutions. The first numbers of bills and joint resolu-
tions for the Senate and House shall be reserved for the legislative
proposals prepared by the Legislative Council and thereafter any
requests for pre-filing of bills or joint resolutions shall be numbered
in the discretion of the Department. No particular number shall be
granted or reserved for any bill or joint resolution.

(c)   On the opening day of any regular session the Department
shall transmit its lists of bills and joint resolutions to the office of
the Secretary of the Senate and the Chief Clerk of the House to-
gether with copies of the bills or resolutions prepared in the form
required by the Rules of the Senate and House of Delegates for the
introduction of bills and joint resolutions. Such transmittal shall
be considered as the introduction into the Clerks' Offices of the,
General Assembly of all bills and joint resolutions so transmitted.

(d)   The lists of bills maintained by the Department and copies
thereof shall be open and available to the public when a bill or reso-
lution number is assigned to the proposal by the Department.