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person who pays some other type of tax.
He is paying a part of that municipality
too. Should he not also have the right?
Why are we restricting it just to the
tax. It can be argued as to whether it is
legal. Still, why restrict it to one class?
Why not let all taxpayers vote if they live
outside the municipal limits?
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
Before the Chair recognizes Delegate Ryb-
czynski, I would like to make the announce-
ment that we have in the balcony a group
from Franklin Junior High School in Bal-
timore County, with their teachers, Miss
Pegal and Mr. Lee.
We will give them a welcome.
(App/a?ese.)
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
Delegate Rybczynski.
DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: I yield up
to five minutes to Delegate Grant.
DELEGATE J. CLARK (presiding) :
Delegate Grant.
DELEGATE GRANT: First of all, I
want to say to both Delegate Della and
Delegate Smith that I would be delighted
to join them in extending this privilege
even further, but I certainly feel that we
should go this far in any event.
The question is not a matter of one man,
one vote. It is a question of one man, no
vote.
Trying to stand on a very old and archaic
test that a person is only interested in a
governmental community or community of
interest in the one locality in which he may
reside is completely false and it ignores
the present situation where we have a mo-
bile population.
People are interested in many commu-
nities. No longer does a man live and work
and die in one specific location. His resi-
dence in a suburb may be many miles from
where he works and if he is fortunate
enough to have a summer residence, that
is also located in a much different location.
And basically, you get around to a ques-
tion of taxation without representation and
that is the real question that is here. That
is why I said I would be glad to extend
this even further for other taxpayers.
The question of Ocean City was discussed
at length at the same time that I was testi-
fying before the Committee on a similar
question, the plight of people who pay an
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enormous amount of money in taxes and
yet have nothing to say about how their
tax money is spent.
Now Ocean City is very exemplary and,
subject to correction by members of the
Committee because I do not have any exact
figures, the situation in Ocean City is some-
thing like this.
When they had an election and cast some
800 votes, 700 or more were cast by people
who were actually non-residents in the
sense of actually living there full-time in
Ocean City. They also pointed out that
three of the seven members of the council
of Ocean City were not residents. They also
pointed out that the election was conducted
in the summer, so that these people who
lived there could actually vote, and they
would not discriminate against them by
requiring them to come down on a cold day
in December if they wanted to vote. There
was also the question of how long they had
to be a resident. To my recollection it had
to be about a year. Also they had to own
a certain amount of property. In other
words, it was a very responsible situation.
I was interested because of the situation
in my own county. I agree with Delegate
White completely about poverty and I
think that poverty in Appalachia is just
as grinding as poverty in the central part
of Baltimore City.
So I agree with you that property quali-
fications are not the sine qua non. How-
ever there is an element of fairness. In
Garrett County we have some 36,000 people
in the county who are not residents of
Maryland. We have some 21,000 who are
residents of Maryland. These 36,000 people
who are vacationers, tourists, residents of
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, create about
$11 million of the $24 million worth of total
business done in the county. Of the total
assessable, of about $60 million, their
ownership is $20 million.
That is they own a third and produce
approximately less than a half of the total
income, and yet there is not yet a single
one of these persons except a very few of
them who may come from the Baltimore
and Washington area who are entitled to
vote, who have anything to say about how
their money is spent, whether they get
roads, whether they get police protection,
and so forth. To me, I think it is the
grossest kind of taxation without repre-
sentation.
I would certainly vote for an extension
of section 2 to other types of taxpayers
besides the people who own property.
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