BLAIR LEE III, Acting Governor

3139

"For the past two years, the Legislative
Improvement and Modernization (LIN) Committee of
the National Conference of State Legislatures has
been studying these alternative approaches, and
has now prepared a report with recommendations
for improving the regulation—review process. * *
* 12

"The LIM Committee's basic recommendation is that
legislatures should establish procedures for
reviewing all agency rules and regulations
promulgated with the force of law, .... [and
t]hese review procedures should be as strong as
the constitution of each state allows.

"[Moreover, in the Committee's view, b]ecause of
the size of most legislatures, the most effective
way of conducting review is through the [joint]
committee procedure. * * *"

Wyatt, "Runaway Bureaucracy: How to Get it Under Control,"
State Legislatures, 8, 9 (March/April 1978).

The Attorneys General of several other states which
have either enacted or considered such legislation have
expressed grave concerns about the constitutionality of such
statutes. 13 This is the first time we have formally
addressed the issues presented by the legislative veto of
proposed regulations;14 however, on April 23, 1965, Attorney
General Finan expressed the view that an Act which would
have prohibited open seasons for the hunting of doe in
certain counties, unless authorized by the Game and Inland
Fish Commission and concurred in by the Legislative
Delegation for each of these counties, was unconstitutional
because it: (1) contravened the separation of powers
mandated by Article 8 of the Declaration of Eights, "if the
action taken by the County Delegation is considered an
executive function"; (2) constituted an impermissible
attempt to authorize a group of legislators less than the
whole to make laws; and (3) fatally provided no standard
whatsoever by which the Delegation was to exercise its
authority. Laws of Maryland (1965) , pp. 1690-1692.

Nevertheless, these objections remain questions of
first impression in the courts of Maryland, and the few
courts which have even remotely addressed the issues in
other jurisdictions are not in accord.15 Moreover, the most
recent case on the subject persuasively upheld a significant
federal statute which presented substantially the same
issues as those posed by House Bill 619,16 and some such
mechanisms already are law in Maryland.17 Furthermore,
although "[t]he Supreme Court deliberately avoided the issue
in Buckley v. Valeo, [424 U.S. 1, 692 n. 176 (1976), aff'g
in part and rev'g in part 519 F.2d 821 (D.C. Cir. 1976)] Mr.
Justice White, writing separately, expressed a belief that