MARVIN MANDEL, Governor

3949

Dear Mr. President:

In accordance with Article II, Section 17 of the
Maryland Constitution, I have today vetoed Senate Bill
480.

This bill requires the Secretary of State to compile
each January (a) a list of certain civil officers
appointed by the Governor in the prior year and (b) a
list of such officers whose terms expire within the
twelve months following. These lists are made a matter
of public record, available to any person upon request,
and are to include the officer's name, position, term of
office, and salary. In addition, the Secretary of State
is required to send a copy of the list to each member of
the General Assembly.

Presently, the very information required to be
compiled by Senate Bill 480, with the exception of
salaries, is available in the Maryland Manual, a
publication issued by the Secretary of State every two
years and distributed without charge to public libraries,
agencies of State and county government, all school
libraries, members of the General Assembly, and others as
prescribed in Article 41, Sections 104—106 of the
Annotated Code of Maryland. The salaries of these
officers are contained in the Annual State Budget, which
is also available to the General Assembly, government
agencies, libraries, and, upon request, to the public at
large.

Senate Bill 480 would thus provide no information
not already available to the public, and its effect would
be merely to place an unnecessary burden on the Secretary
of State, possibly entailing additional staff and its
concomitant expense. The Secretary of State is already
overburdened with the many other responsibilities of his
office, including the duty of compiling the Maryland
Register and Code of Maryland Regulations and the duty of
being custodian of all of the financial disclosure
statements required to be filed by the Financial
Disclosure Act.

In the 1974 legislative session, the General
Assembly enacted House Bill 1117 which, except for the
additional provision contained in S.B. 480 which requires
the Secretary of State to send copies of the list to each
member of the General Assembly, is identical to Senate
Bill 480. I vetoed H.B. 1117 for the reasons I have
above enumerated. Since there is no substantial
difference between H.B. 1117 and S.B. 480, and since I am
at this time attempting to curtail all unnecessary State
expenditures, I feel that I must veto S.B. 480.