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3681
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MARVIN MANDEL, Governor
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No. 12
(Senate Joint Resolution 13)
A Senate Joint Resolution concerning
Commission on Legislative Structure and Schedule
FOR the purpose of requesting the President and the
Speaker to appoint a commission to study
alternatives to and improvements in the structure
and schedule of the General Assembly of Maryland.
During the past several years, the operation and
functioning of the General Assembly has developed to the
point that the Members are required to spend considerably
more time on a year-round basis on their legislative
duties of serving on committees, reviewing legislation,
and servicing constituent needs. It has also become
apparent that time constraints of a 90 consecutive day
annual session have placed severe restrictions on what
the General Assembly can manage and cope with. With the
limits on what can be expected of legislators under the
pressures of the Session and the demands of a nine—month
interim, particularly under the current salary structure,
a very finely need exists to consider seriously and in
depth what shape the General Assembly should take after
the 1978 election. This study should address itself to
the questions of whether an alternative to the 90-day
session is necessary, whether split sessions would be
helpful, what the size, structure, and role of
legislative staff should be, whether more staffing could
eliminate the need for a full—time legislature, what is
an appropriate salary for members, and should
compensation reflect participation in between-sessions
activities; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF MARYLAND, That
the President and Speaker appoint a Commission on
Legislative Process (1) to undertake an in-depth analysis
of the structure and schedule of the General Assembly and
the problems faced by legislators with the existing
workload of the Legislature during the sessions and the
interim periods; and (2) to develop practical
alternatives to the present structure if it decides that
changes from the existing structure are necessary; and be
it further
RESOLVED, That the President appoint six Senators to
the Commission, at least one of whom shall be a member of
the minority party and not more than three of whom shall
be members of the Legislative Policy Committee. The
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