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Show UNDER THE CAPITOL DOME by James Conrad When the special session of Utah's 26th Legislature adjourned adjourn-ed sine die last Saturday at 6:20 p.m., even the legislators were pleasantly surprised to find they had accomplished in one week a job that many predicted would take not less than 10 days and "maybe three weeks". It was a hard-working legislative legisla-tive body that got over all the business presented in the call of Governor Herbert B. Maw, along with providing emergency financial fin-ancial aid to the 1947 Centennial celebration and adopting two pointed efforts to keep sections of Utah lands from falling permanently per-manently into federal control. Fust of all the legislature sent to the people of the state five more proposed constitutional a-mendments, a-mendments, making eight in all to be placed on the ballot November No-vember 5th Two amendments, proposed by the State Tax Study committee, concerning the financing fin-ancing of a minimum school program pro-gram on a "flexible basis of more equalized taxation and distribu-! distribu-! tion" passed without amendment. But, because it was deemed "not vital" to the school program or i an urgent need at this time, a ; third tax study committee pro-I pro-I posal to amend the constitution i in such a way that all natural re-i re-i sources, including oil and gas, be ! taxed the same as metal mines on a net proceeds basis was killed in the senate after unanimous unan-imous passage in the house. Accepting a proposal of the governor, the legislature also sent to the people for vote a constitutional con-stitutional amendment to empower em-power the legislature to change the location of certain state institutions in-stitutions to allow the state to utilize Bushnell General hospital for institutional purposes if the $14,000,000 installation is acquired. acquir-ed. Other constitutional amend-; amend-; ments proposed to the electorate would allow the legislature to ; raise or lower the latter provided provid-ed as a result of house amend-1 amend-1 ments salaries of state elective officers during a term of office, and to raise but not diminish the salaries of supreme court and district judges. This would allow the state officials and the judges to accept on January 1, 1947, the i salaries approved in the 1945 ses-I ses-I sion of the legislature. (Continued on page eight) r until after the senate had passed an amendment of Senator Ira Huggins (D-Ogden) providing that none of the $10,000, appropriated appro-priated in the bill for the committee's com-mittee's use, could be used until after election day, and then only on provision that the electorate accepts the amendment. Two successful measures ngur-t-d in the matter of land withdrawals with-drawals One by Senators Warner, Warn-er, Kelly, Lund, Melich, Houston and Hopkin, memorializes Presi- ' dent Truman and the secretary of the interior to deny an application appli-cation for withdrawal of approximately approx-imately 3,000,000 acres of land in western Utah for military target tar-get range purposes- The other, introduced by Senator Melich. was a resolution requesting the president and the secretary of the interior to revoke a pre-war withdrawal of magnesium and ( potash lands in southeastern Utah. Late in the session the legislature legisla-ture gave unanimous approval to a measure memorializing the Civil Aeronautics board to ap-1 prove airline service between Utah and Arizona for feeder passenger pas-senger and airmail transportation. No little attention was gained during the session by law-makers proposing the people vote on whether or not a convention be called to revise and amend the , constitution. A resolution to this effect overwhelmingly passed tin-senate, tin-senate, but it died in the house where Representative Frank Bo- ; nacci (D-Price) characterized the feiding. In explaining his "no" vote, Tie said it afforded an op-, portunitv to "get even with the house o'f lords" (meaning the; senate) for its action against the gas and oil tax bill. Another measure, introduced (by Senator Lamoreaux) and killed in the senate, was one proposing pro-posing a constitutional amendment amend-ment to place in the hands of tin-State tin-State Tax commission the job of assessing all taxable property in the state. UNDER THE CAPITOL DOME I (Continued from Dace one) Along with these five amendments amend-ments on the ballot this fall will be the three passed in 1945, one , Of which would permit the state to tax federal property. Another would permit the state to tax federal lands and the other would provide the election of county attorneys every four years, instead in-stead of every two years, as at present. Actually the action taken last week on the first six joint reso lutions concerning constitutional amendments, five of which passed, pass-ed, took care of all questions put by the governor. The first four were in the official call and the ; salary measures were added in his opening message on Aug. 5. Appropriation of a half-million dollars to finance the Centennial program came after the legisla- j ture, in joint session, declined to ! act on a request of the State Cen- j tennial commission that the law makers pass a resolution recommending recom-mending the State Board of Examiners Ex-aminers declare a deficit not to I exceed $500,000 for the commis- j sion's use. . Both houses acted on authority 1 of an opinion from Attorney Gen- j eral Grover A. Giles that the governor's request for the legislature legis-lature to hear the commission opened the way for introduction of HB-1, appropriating a half-million half-million dollars to finance the 1947 celebration. Interest in the amendment concerning con-cerning use of Bushnell ws such that it prompted the legislature j to spend one of the session days Wednesday at the hospital in Bngham City. Soon after their I return they passed an additional, measure setting up a legislative! committee of six, three from each house, to investigate and study advisability of acquiring j the installation for institutional! purposes. Selection of committee j members awaited the governor's! signature on the bill. This mea- ! sure was not passed, incidentally, 1 |