Maryland House of Delegates
The House of Representatives from Maryland (Maryland House of Delegates ) is the lower house of the Maryland General Assembly, the legislature of the U.S. state of Maryland. There are only three states, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia, who call their lower houses House of Delegates.
The Houses of Parliament is composed of 141 deputies, who are elected in 47 electoral districts. An election for four years. The elections are held in even years, in which the President of the United States is not elected. The conference hall of the House of Representatives is located together with the State Senate in Maryland State House in the capital, Annapolis.
History
The Maryland House of Delegates was originally founded in 1650 as the lower house of the General Assembly, as the legislature was bicameral. In the following time the House fought again and again with the House of Lords to the political influence in the colony. The House of Lords consisted of the governor and his council, all appointed by Lord Baltimore in person and consequently pursued the object to protect its interests in Maryland. Conversely, the lower house filed a change in the colony. It called for free elections for deputies of the population. In this context, the lower house constantly fought for more power. It tried exclusive rights to enforce in certain legislative areas such as tax collection and the rubber stamp of budgets.
The governor got in the late 17th century a lot of control over the House of Commons. Despite the fact that each county had to claim four delegates, elected the governor only two of them to the House. This allowed the governor control over the members of the lower house.
1689 succeeded in Maryland through the transfer of its status of a protected colony to colony, to calm the conflict between the House of Commons on the one hand and the Governor temporarily with his advice on the other side. Appointed by the Crown, granted the royal governors in the House of considerable latitude in its legislative intentions. The first royal Assembly adopted in 1692 in a single session by 85 laws. The House acted immediately and circumcised the governor influence in the election of delegates. From there, the elected delegates were able to attend the meetings without a special decree of the governor need to. At the same time resistant or persistent committees were established. This eliminated the dependence of ad hoc committees and created the first modern legislature in Maryland. During this period, the House of Commons House of Delegates has been renamed.
The Constitution of Maryland from 1776 formally created the modern House of Delegates. Initially based representation on a geographical basis as the voters in each county select four delegates, in each case, two were from Annapolis and Baltimore. The delegates first completed a one-year term (from 1845 then a two-year, and from 1922 to today, a four-year ).
With the start of the elections of 1838 chose each County three to six delegates, which was dependent on its population. Baltimore chose the same number of delegates, as well as the most populous county. After 1840 Annapolis was considered a part of the Anne Arundel County. Reapportionments were performed after each census, in an effort to obtain equal-sized constituencies.
The current distribution scheme of the seats in the House of Delegates began with the legislative allocation plan 1972 and all subsequent 10 years have been improved. The plan provided for the creation of 47 legislative election districts. It permeated many of these, the Countygrenzen to achieve districts with relatively equal population. Each of these districts sent three delegates to the House of Representatives, so that ultimately came together 141 members. Some of the major districts are divided into subdistricts to allow certain local agencies, since the areas were not large enough to create a completely independent constituency.