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Proceedings and Debates of the 1967 Constitutional Convention
Volume 104, Volume 1, Debates 1635   View pdf image (33K)
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[Dec. 2] DEBATES 1635

(1) The legislative article should express
only fundamental law and omit procedural
details.

Since the Constitution is supposed to em-
body a more basic and inferior presence,
matters of less importance should be left to
the discretion of the legislature so that
immediate problems can be handled within
the framework of the Constitution.

The last Constitution is very brief and
conservative in providing the legislative
procedural details. Section 12 simply pro-
vides that the house shall adopt its own
rules of procedure, and it shall keep a
journal. Section 13 sets up a very brief
article reaffirming the rule that every bill
shall relate to one subject, and that subject
shall be described in its title.

Finally, section 14 relates to the passage
of bills, saying that the legislature shall
establish a procedure for the enactment of
bills, and the law then says Ayes and Nays
on final passage shall be entered in the
Journal.

Also it requires the entire vote of the
entire membership.

The point I am driving at is that as a
general principle, the Constitution should
be very conservative in providing proce-
dural details. Most of this should be han-
dled by rule. I might say the federal Con-
stitution is very, very conservative in re-
quired procedural details. Maryland did
run into this snarl on numerous occasions.
In 1949, the case of Maryland v. Lang in-
volved a situation in which the legislative
practice was not to enter into the recorded
roll call how each member voted on final
passage; however, there is a constitutional
provision in Maryland which reads as fol-
lows: "Each House shall keep a journal of
its proceedings and cause the same to be
published. The Yeas and Nays of the mem-
bers on any question shall, upon any call of
five members of the house, be entered on
the journal."

Section 8 says, "No bill shall become law
unless it be passed by the majority of the
whole house by the members elected, and on
this final action the whole Yeas and Nays
shall be recorded."

They did not list this vote on the changes
of the bond issue, and the Court of Appeals
ruled since this constitutional requirement
was not technically complied with, the bill
was invalid. So the point I am making is
that the courts construe these constitutional
requirements procedurally very strictly.

Now, the amendment I am offering would
eliminate the requirement that the commit-
tee vote be made part of the journal. This
simply is going to mean that every bill may
be subject to attack if the journal does not
have the committee vote, and I assume the
committee vote will mean a main commit-
tee and not a subcommittee of a standing
committee. It will require a normal vote,
and every bill will be established whereby
the chairman of the committee will have to
certify the committee vote with the bill,
and it will have to be entered into the
record.

It will mean the question of whether
there was a quorum in the committee, what
the membership of the committee was, what
is a quorum, whether the failure to have a
majority of a quorum or a majority of all
the membership voting in favor — in other
words, the committee procedure will be-
come a matter of constitutional importance,
and I submit to you that this is really an
area which should be controlled by rules of
the General Assembly, and that it should
not be a matter which can be attacked in
the court because some rule of procedure
within a committee which could be re-
flected in the journal is not complied with.

THE CHAIRMAN: Are there any ques-
tions of the sponsor of the amendment?

DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Mr. Chair-
man.

THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Gallagher.

DELEGATE GALLAGHER: Senator
James, is it not true that when a bill re-
ceives an unfavorable committee vote that
the bill generally is never reported to the
full floor of either chamber, so that in
effect, therefore, a great deal of action is
taken in committee, namely the killing of
legislation, both important and unimpor-
tant. In effect what is accomplished in com-
mittee is equally as important as what is
accomplished on the floor?

DELEGATE JAMES: I would say you
are absolutely correct, but this would not
help that situation one bit — the procedure
of holding a bill in the committee. How-
ever, in defense of the legislative procedure
I can say this to you, that the General
Assembly in Maryland is not like Congress
in that it is very easy to get a bill out of
committee for a vote on the floor, even
though there is an unfavorable report.

The Congressional policy sets up all sorts
of roadblocks to having a bill come out of
the committee in the face of unfavorable
committee action. It may even do so in the



 

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Proceedings and Debates of the 1967 Constitutional Convention
Volume 104, Volume 1, Debates 1635   View pdf image (33K)
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