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A vote Aye is a vote in favor of Amend-
ment No. 1. A vote No is a vote against.
Cast your votes.
Has every delegate voted? Does any dele-
gate desire to change his vote?
(There was no response.)
Does any other delegate desire to change
his vote?
Delegate Gallagher.
DELEGATE GALLAGHER: May I
point out Mr. President, that you of all
people have just left the establishment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Chair-
man Gallagher.
Has every delegate voted?
(There was no response.)
The Clerk will record the vote.
There having been 5 votes in the affirma-
tive and 113 in the negative, the motion is
lost. The amendment is rejected.
The Chair must be getting tired.
The pages will distribute amendment G.
This will be Amendment No. 2. The Clerk
will read the amendment.
READING CLERK: Amendment No. 2
to Committee Recommendation LB-2, by
Delegates Wagandt and Winslow:
On page 1 section 3.02, Legislative Dis-
tricts, in lines 21 through 24, inclusive,
strike out the sentence beginning with the
word "the" in line 21 and ending with the
word "equal" in line 24 and insert in lieu
thereof the following sentence: "Each house
district shall not exceed in population any
other house district by more than fifteen
per cent."
THE CHAIRMAN : The amendment hav-
ing been moved by Delegate Wagandt and
seconded by Delegate Winslow, the Chair
recognizes Delegate Wagandt.
DELEGATE WAGANDT: I should say,
we are substituting a percentage here for
the term "substantially equal." We feel
that by so doing, we are resolving some of
the problems that have been raised here
during the questioning period.
To leave the words as they currently are,
in other words, "substantially equal", and
also the term, "natural boundaries", and
the term "the boundaries of political sub-
divisions shall be followed insofar as prac-
ticable", we feel will enable the General
Assembly to distort the concept of one
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man-one vote to the maximum degree per-
mitted by the Supreme Court.
At this time I would note that the Court
is allowing a number of states, such as
New Hampshire, West Virginia and Wyom-
ing, to have districts with over twice as
many persons per delegate, or per repre-
sentative, perhaps I should say, than other
districts in those states, and even here in
Maryland I would call to your attention
that there are nearly twice as many per-
sons in Dorchester County per delegate as
there are in Kent County.
I would also note that the history of our
State has been replete with the 'struggle to
bring about more equitable apportionment,
and I will just touch on a couple of cases.
For example, one of the major issues be-
fore the Constitutional Conventions of
1851 and 1864 was the matter of more
equitable representation. In the Constitu-
tion of 1851 we made some progress. In
the Constitution of 1864 we made a lot of
progress, but the present Constitution,
that of 1867, unfortunately took a step
backward and furthered the malapportion-
ment of the state.
As to more recent decades, I am sure
most of you here are familiar with the
struggle of Baltimore City and the sub-
urban counties around Baltimore and
Washington to gain more equitable repre-
sentation, better redistricting, in other
words. But despite voter agitation the Gen-
eral Assembly has refused to respond to
the need for more equitable representation
until forced by the courts to act, so I
would suggest that the General Assembly
is an unreliable instrument for achieving
the goal of one man-one vote.
Therefore, let us be sure we have laid
down specific lines within which the Gen-
eral Assembly may act; let us settle here
for all time the redistricting issue.
Now as to the setting of guidelines, I
say it is wrong to wait on the federal
courts to act. We are here to create a vi-
able instrument of government for this
State, not one, I would suggest, that waits
on Uncle Sam to tell us what to do.
As to the recommended guideline, 15
percent, it is doubtful that the Supreme
Court will move a tighter margin but if it
should, we can very readily comply.
The important point is this: that regard-
less of the vagaries of the Supreme Court
decisions we shall have a limit beyond
which the General Assembly cannot go.
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