Court Opinion

ID: 9645312
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:20:35.097596+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:15:21.052451
License: Public Domain

Smith, J.,

dissenting:

I concur fully in the dissenting opinion of Chief Judge Murphy. I would add but a few additional observations.
The constitutional provisions here under discussion are essentially the same as those proposed by the Constitutional Convention of Maryland in 1968. See Comparison of Present Constitution and Constitution Proposed by Convention 198-99 (1968). I find interesting and persuasive the views expressed at the Constitutional Convention on this subject by Delegates Joseph Sherbow and William S. James.
Delegate Sherbow is one of the acknowledged fiscal experts of this State, having served in 1939 as secretary of the Maryland Commission on Taxation and Revenues and in 1946 as chairman of the Commission on Distribution of Tax Revenues. At the Convention he was chairman of the Committee on State Finance and Taxation. As that committee chairman on December 6, 1967, he presented Committee Recommendation No. SF-5 to the Convention sitting as the Committee of the Whole. It concerned the budget. See Journal of the Constitutional Convention of Maryland of 1967-68 301 (1968). It was the practice of the Constitutional Convention for the chairman of each committee presenting such a recommendation to make comments relative to the proposal and then to subject himself to questions. I find instructive two sets of questions and answers:
“DELEGATE BENNETT: Well, it leaves a tremendous amount of power in the head of the budget system here. He is a practical dictator.
*164“I know from having dealt with budget directors in other places and it is pretty frustrating on the administrative officer not to have some appeal to the legislature.
“Is there any way, or would you object to any way by which a proviso could be put in which would allow, or prohibit the governor from reducing an appropriation or excluding an appropriation specifically provided for by a special bill?
“DELEGATE SHERBOW: If that is the law which is already in effect, he has to provide for it.
But he can’t anticipate a bill that may be passed, except to the extent that in the supplementary appropriation he can provide for it. But if you are talking about a law that has been passed which he may despise and have no use for, he has to include that in the budget. To prohibit a law yet to be passed, he couldn’t possibly know what is required.
“We have these safeguards for which I am thankful.” Transcript of Proceedings of Constitutional Convention pp. 7504-05.
“DELEGATE RALEY: Judge Sherbow, following along the question directed to you by Delegate Bennett and in regard to section 6.10, supplementary appropriations, I think we ought to get into the record where under section 6.10, supplementary appropriations, it says they shall be — there shall be a tax accompanying the action, that this — is it true; you can comment on it — that this does not prohibit the legislature from, say, passing a program for, say, mental health, without a tax, and it not going in effect in this coming budget year, but the next fiscal year the governor would then have to fund it?
“DELEGATE SHERBOW: Yes. What would happen would be if you provide it go into effect in the next fiscal year, it would have to be a part of the budget. He is required by law to, or by this Constitution to provide in his budget for that *165particular program, and it is then an ordinary part of the program. But it is off, of course, for over a year.” Transcript pp. 7514-15.
At another point on that same day a proposal was before the Convention which would have amended the recommendation of the Committee on State Finance and Taxation by permitting the General Assembly to “amend the budget bill by increasing or decreasing the appropriation for any item included in the budget, by transferring funds among items included in the budget or by including items not in the budget bill as introduced,” so long as “[t]he total appropriation included in the budget bill as enacted by the General Assembly [did] not exceed the estimate of revenues submitted by the governor.” See Journal at 302. Delegate James took the floor in opposition to this proposal. He was then President of the Senate of Maryland and is now State Treasurer. He said:
“DELEGATE JAMES: Mr. Chairman, Fellow Delegates:
“I would like to say that I have been in the General Assembly 21 years, and I have yet to talk to a responsible legislative leader, I have yet to talk to a legislator, who is not satisfied with the present executive budget system which limits the power of the General Assembly to cutting items.
“The legislature is certainly not helpless. If there is a public program which demands attention, the legislature studies this program* sometimes by itself, sometimes in cooperation with the governor; then plans are laid to adopt a program which expresses the legislative feeling in the matter, and if the program is adopted it is implemented in the executive budget. Let's face it. This is the proposal to implement expanding programs in a disorderly manner.
“I am confident the General Assembly and its members, by an overwhelming majority, are *166opposed to this, and I urge you to adopt the conservative approach, the present system, which is orderly and does not lead us into the chaos that exists in the federal government and in many States which do not have Maryland’s beneficial and orderly system of handling finances.” Transcript pp. 7635-36.
These statements must be placed in the context that the delegates present included former Governor J. Millard Tawes; former Speaker of the House of Delegates of Maryland, Attorney General, and Judge of this Court, C. Ferdinand Sybert; a number of then legislators and former legislators; at least one highly respected then sitting circuit judge; retired judges including William L. Henderson, a former Chief Judge of this Court; and such a fiscal expert as Richard W. Case, Esq., vice-chairman of the committee of which Judge Sherbow was chairman. No delegate took issue with the accuracy of the statements made.
I am authorized by Chief Judge Murphy and Judge Digges to say that they concur in the views here expressed.