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Show WASATCH COUNTY COURIER MARCH 7, 2001 - — He said he siartad session this too late in the year, but he audit, $10 million for new school building, and $5 million for teacher sup- remains enthusiastic about the proposal. plies. With $650 million to spend in the total $7.7 billion budget, few groups were sent home disappointed. Bland Session Features Tax Relief, Education Funding But Senate Majority Leader Steve Poulton, . R-Holladay, «said the Legislature opted to pay cash for new buildings and not grow government programs. _ “We were very prudent and conservative,” he said. More importantly, he ROBERT GEHRKE 2001 Legislature's Controversial -C.G. WALLACE PRESS SALT LAKE CITY dead and defeated - failed legislative bills ~ urrected to become WRITER (AP) — Although now, this year’s will likely be resnext year’s hotly contested issues. — When the 45-day Utah Legislature wrapped up last Wednesday night, a number of lawmakers — most of them Democrats — were licking their - wounds and planning for next year. ‘Many of the failed bills died without ever being debated. Instead, the Grim Reaper came in the form of the House ‘and Senate rules committees, the Legislature’s gatekeepers that decide which bills make it to the floor for debate. | - Almost all the sponsors of killed bills vowed to return with their measures next year. | | ~ Sen. Paula J ulander’s veseriueen equity bill, dubbed “the pill bill,” never - got a committee hearing. The bill would have required health insurance companies to pay for prescribed contraception. Only once in the four LEGISLATURE years Julander, D-Salt Lake City, has spon- sored the bill has it received public PRESS WRITER - SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Perhaps a loophole that allows lobbyists to split Bills Died Quiet Deaths ASSOCIATED UTAH ASSOCIATED the cost of gifts to skirt Utah's. $50. the defining moment of the 2001 leg- reporting limit. __ He, too, will be back. “Hope forever springs eternal,” he Said. 2 Rep. Scott Daniels, D-Salt Laie City, - whose bills to require background checks at gun shows and a two-year cooling-off period before legislators can become lobbyists never made ‘it out of House Rules, wants to change the process. islative session, which ended Wednesday, came about halfway through, when Bill Cosby mugged for Official snack. : | Lobbyist and former House minori- ty leader Frank Pignanelli says that, . with the exception of the punishment teachers union and a failed battle to get a hate crimes bill passed, there of the Utah Education Association _ Deioect Daniels ple’s work and I suspect we'll meet here again soon,” said Leavitt. Likely sooner than planned. The House stalled a Leavitt-backed bill on job training centers, then opted not to vote on it, suggesting the governor a convene a special session in April. costly to store radioactive waste in ‘Utah. expectations. Despite a blitz from 14 paid fenbe. ists, Envirocare was hit with a tax on its low-level radioactive waste dump in _ “I don’t think that anyone coming into this session would have thought that we would have the kind of tax reduction we had this year,” the speak- er said. “When you talk to the UEFA, ed, they're happy.” | The final version, reached in negotia- comma changed” in the bill. A slew of lobbyist reform bills were City, the Utah Legislature’s only black with the amount of new funding they shelved lawmaker, said he will sponsor the bill got, they are still smarting from bill prohibiting its members from withholding political donations. The union has vowed to sue Be day the bill takes effect. again in 2002. despite their sponsors scrambling to Bourdeaux’s bill would have pry them loose. Rep. Ralph Becker, D-Salt Lake | required drivers to list a racial category on their licenses. When drivers City, got signatures from 38 House were stopped by police, their races members to get his bill out—enough | could be recorded to determine _ for its passage if they all voted for it. whether officers were pulling over - But the House Rules Committee disproportionate numbers of minori- , sent it to a committee that never debat- ed it but instead sent it back to Rules as the session wound down. “T feel like I did everything possible within our rules and appropriate public behavior to get this bill heard,” said Becker, who will bring the bill back next year. ties. 8 ~The bill had the backing of the | Attorney General, law enforcement agencies and the governor’s office. Other bills were voluntarily killed : by their sponsors. Rep. John Swallow, R-Sandy, decid- Rep. Ron Bigelow’ s ethics reform ~ ed to postpone his bill to provide tax credits for private school tuition until bill got: stuck in the Senate Rules Committee. The bill would have closed next year. SEN. BEVERLY EVANS (435) 454-3719 (home) ee 538-1035 (Capitol) 3 Tooele County. But the company man_aged to deflect much of the blow.. Initially a tax that would generate $100 million was floated at the Capitol. they’re happy. When you talk to higher UEA is not happy. While union leaders _ Rep. Duane Bourdeaux, D-Salt Lake nesses, the Legislature made it more House Speaker Marty Stephens, RFarr West, said the session exceeded shot down in the Senate with a tie vote. committees, special needs children and an exemption for tickets to school events were also approved. Tax exemption was also given to Micron Technologies, scrap recyclers and rooms taxed by American Indian | tribes. oo ‘I think the taxpayer fared very well,” said Wes Quinton, vice president of the Utah Taxpayers Association, a pro-business tax watchdog. Because of the slowing economy, “if we didn’t cut taxes we'd be even worse off.” While taxes were cut for many busi- success _ passing $28 million in tax cuts and infusing a record $208 million into public education. “We've done the job they . sent us here do. We cut taxes. We did the peo-— year, and “I doubt there will be a Rules rolls, a credit for adoptive parents of Gov. Mike Leavitt called the session a killed on the floor after lots of magnanimous debate,” he said. “You get here and see there’s 100 different ways a _ bill can die.” Some bills met more Sanne demises. Among them 1 was oe David Ure’s repeal -of last year’s House Bill 320, which revamped the utility regulation of work, A bill to take 30, 000 of Utah’s poorest taxpayers off the state income tax Nonetheless, legislative leaders and “I always pictured that a bill got | After 18 months “If mean, nothing,” said Pignanelli, - appointment.” teary Ure abandoned his push to revise last year’s bill and repealed it entirely. _ failed in the Senate by one vote. _ “The environment wake right,” he _ “Thave a real philosophical problem ead adding that many people thought with not debating that bill,” Julander said. “Winning or losing is not the ~ his bill had contributed to their increased utility bills. issue; it’s allowing the public to be A bill meant to determine whether involved in the process and allowing the process to wor Utah’s law enforcement unfairly tarBut she said she will be back next gets minorities during traffic stops was — the airlines a tax break on jet fuel, costing $3 million. who anticipated utility deregulation and banking battles. “It was a big dis- debate. Two years ago, it passed a Senate agriculture committee but in homes at a cost of $4.4 million and give | wasn’t much of interest. said he had two strikes against him. But he said he'll be back again next year. For freshman Republican Rep. Morgan Philpot, R-Draper, the session was an eye-opening lesson. | . The biggest chunk of the tax relief comes in an $18 million across-theboard reduction of state income taxes. That amounts to a reduction of about $32 per married couple, according to the Utah Tax Commission.In addition to the generali incometax reduction, the Legislature passed eight smaller tax cuts. The two largest would eliminate a bed tax for nursing In many ways, the session was J ell: : O—a lot of colorful wiggling and jiggling, but in the end it was tame, squishy and lacked substance. “It’s not democratic,” he said. “One system. taxes.” _ lawmakers declaring J ell-O the state’s of the things that surprised me the most is how important personal relationships are, whether they like you or owe you one.” As a freshman said, lawmakers gave a $28 million tax cut. “We didn’t forget that the people of _ this state are the ones who paid the | tions with Envirocare president Charles Judd. and owner Khosrow are pieced ~ There also was some Heseibuen about the decision to block grant a Semnani—an— important UEA president Phyllis Sorensen. Otherwise, education fared well, with.an increase of about 5.5 percent in the state’s per-pupil education spending, $23.8 million to make up textbook | deficiencies found in a legislative | campaign of Just $700,000. . Wt really got to a point where this was a train coming at us and we either got ran over or tried not to get hurt too _ bad,” said Judd. number of programs, which could mean spending on teacher development might not grow at the same rate as per-pupil spending. “There was great potential and they didn’t live up to the potential, said ~ ”? taxes donor—imposes The Legislature also approved two bills drafted by the governor’s office to block a proposed high-level nuclear waste storage site on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation. . One bill would require Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of electrical util- — ity companies that wants to build the dump,to put up as much as $150 billion cash before the site can begin tak- | ing waste. Another sets up $1.1 million to pay the costs of fighting the Storage site. | REP. GORDON SNOW | (435) 722-4162 (home) | (801) 538-1029 (Capitol) | |