3098

VETOES

Dear Governor Lee:

House Bill 70 would amend Transportation Article,
§4-401 to prohibit the construction of commercial or
industrial facilities within 25 feet of an access road to a
Maryland Transportation Authority facility without the
approval of the Administrative, Executive and Legislative
Review Committee.

At first blush, the rationale which lead us to conclude
that the legislative veto provisions of House Bill 619 and
Senate Bills 278 and 29 6 are not clearly unconstitutional
would seem to compel the same conclusion with respect to
this measure. However, a closer reading demonstrates a
substantial difference between this provision and the
provisions contained in those bills.

In essence, this bill would vest in the AELR Committee
the absolute discretion and authority to zone the affected
areas so as to prohibit, for any reason, the construction of
facilities which might be permissible under local zoning
laws. The Court of Appeals has consistently held that the
act of zoning is legislative in its strictest sense; i.e.,
it is lawmaking. See, Hyson v. Montgomery County, 242 Md.
55, 63 (1966). Indeed, the power to zone is delegable to
political subdivisions only because they may validly
exercise the lawmaking function at the local level. See,

Prince George's County v. McBride, 268 Md. 522, 528 (1973).

Thus, unlike the review of proposed rules (which, although
legislative in nature, is an exercise of the General
Assembly's oversight function and not its lawmaking
function), zoning clearly is a direct exercise of the
lawmaking function.1

It is even more clearly settled that the General
Assembly may not redelegate its lawmaking authority to any
other entity, agency or person. Pressman v. Barnes, 209 Md.
544 (1956); Maryland Coop. Milk Producers v. Miller, 170
Md. 81 (1936); c.f. Algren v. Cromwell, 179 Md. 243 (1941) ;
Mugford v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 185 Md. 266
(1945). This conclusion rests upon two grounds, viz.,:

"... one, that the people of Maryland hav[ing]
delegated to the Legislature of Maryland the
power of making its laws, that body could not
legally or validly redelegate the power and the
authority thus conferred upon it ...; and two,
that the people of the State from whom the
Legislature itself derives its powers, having
prescribed in the Constitution of the State the
manner in which its laws shall be enacted, it is
not competent for the Legislature to prescribe
any other or different way in which its laws may
be enacted."