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Show Statehouse 'Report Dollar Battle Grows Fiercer As Legislature Nears Climax liy C. SHARP Financial problems continue con-tinue to plague the Legis-laiture Legis-laiture as it closes its last full week before adjourn, meat March 11. A conviction appears to be general among Republican Repub-lican lawmakers that Gov. Calvin L. Rampton is attempting at-tempting to build a financial finan-cial cushion this year preparatory pre-paratory to the election year of 1972. They accordingly are trying to clamp down on expenditures and make the governor find any reserves he can to meet operating expenses during the fiscal year to end June 30, 1972. Should the Republican's be guessing wrong, however, howev-er, and the state be forced to impose an extra mill levy le-vy on property to pay for public school support' later lat-er this year, they might end up in political disfavor. disfav-or. Measure Killed As predicted, the Senate, Sen-ate, Feb. 22, killed Ramp-ton's Ramp-ton's graduated mine occupation occu-pation (severance) tax increase. in-crease. The vote was 8-18. The Republicans wbo control thhe Senate apparently appar-ently will not enact any new tax to raise the $4 million anticipated from Rampton's mine tax, but will attempt to cut appropriations appro-priations to balance the budget. The steering- committee of the Appropriations Committee Com-mittee is meeting daily from 8 to 10 a.m. hearing subcommittee recommendations recommen-dations preparatory to hammering out an appropriations appro-priations bill. On Feb. 26 seven meas. ures designed to eliminate most of the work of computing com-puting state income tax by using federal taxable income as base sailed through the Senate with opposition of from three to nine votes. Face House Testing These bills next went to the Democratic controlled House. In the Senate. Sen. Omar Om-ar Bunnell, D-Price, minority min-ority leader, changed his vote to favor the bills after af-ter hearing that senators were dividing on party lines on the bills. Some of the opposition came from school interests who hate to lose exemption of teacher' retirement re-tirement pay from state income in-come which comes with adopting ad-opting the federal income tax regulation. Rep. C. DeMont Jiidd, D-Ogden, House majority leader, said he believes voters vo-ters gave their mandate when they voted last November No-vember to allow state income in-come tax to be based upon federal tax laws. He expects ex-pects speedy passage of the laws. Opposes Change Sen. Thorpe Wadding-ham, Wadding-ham, influential Democrat from Delta, takes the opposite op-posite view. He said that although he would profit personaly from accepting federal ' income tax regu-ation regu-ation and exemptions granted gran-ted beyond the state level he could not in good conscience con-science c vote for laws which-would increase the tax burden on others. Rampton apparently is taking a hands off attitude- on the tax bills which would become effective In 1972. Sen. Kendrick Harward, R-Richfield, is prime supporter, sup-porter, of the bill which he belieVes will not hurt the Bmall taxpayer or the large taxpayer and will bring the state' approximately the same revenue as at present pres-ent Statisticians employed by Harward's interim Tax Revision Committee which prepared the bills have attempted at-tempted to make them as equitable as possible. Single Prosecutor Unanimous approval was given by the Senate Feb. 25 to 23 House bills to produce pro-duce a single prosecutor System for handling criminal crim-inal cases. Because the bills were amended in the Senate, they went back to the HouBe for concurrence before be-fore going to the governor for his signature. Rampton advocated the. ingle prosecutor system in his State of the State message mes-sage to the Legislature. The bills provide that beginning be-ginning Jan. 1, 1973 dis-drict dis-drict attorneys and staff in severt judicail districts will be. 'eliminated in favor of the 29 county attorneys and their staffs who will prosecute criminal cases both in city and district courts. Waddingham Amendment A Waddingham amendment amend-ment specifies that the state attorney general must assist a county attorney in criminal prosecutions if the district judge deems this necessary. This will assist needy counties. The State Supreme Court Feb. 23 upheld constitutionality constitu-tionality of Utah's 1969 liquor laws. Former Atty. Gen. Phil L. Hansen, attorney for the Pride Club and 26 other oth-er private liquor locker clubs, had attacked the laws. He charged that giving gi-ving the State Liquor Control Con-trol Commission authority to licence clubs with consent con-sent of local authorities and a provision to allow officers free access to clubs during business hours were unconstitutional. unconstitution-al. Justice A. H. Ellett who wrote the controlling opinion, opin-ion, said: Why Object? "If there is no violation of the law ... it is difficult diffi-cult to see why members would object to presence of an officer in their midst." Justice J. Allan Crockett Crock-ett concurred in the decision. decis-ion. The other three justices justic-es concurred only to the extent that they believed that Hansen had not proved prov-ed that his clients had been adversely affected, thus could not challenge constitutionality of the laws. Justice F. Henri Hen-roid Hen-roid said he thought unreasonable un-reasonable searches and invasions of privacy were involved. He thought the Jaws should be declared unconstitutional if brought before the court properly. |