OCR Text |
Show binder (k BY HARRY MARLOWE The story of the Twenty-eighth Utah Legislature is not so much one of what was done as it is of what wasn't clone. Value of the session, which adjourned just three hours after the. 16th-day deadline, at 3 a. m. March 11, consequently lies in the fact that no particular harm was done by the lawmakers. At the same time, there were several things accomplished on the affirmative side that didn't particularly hurt , anyone, either. ' I In all, the session passed 116 margarine, both yellow and A'hite, after it had been amended to make the tax on both the same. Weber college failed in its effort ef-fort to become a four-year institution insti-tution and the Utah Symphony lost a $40,000 emergency appropriation, appro-priation, both by veto of the governor after they had passed both houses. Among accomplishments of the session was the passage of a bill to take the supreme court justices and district court judges out of partisan politics. This was something the legislature has tried to do since 1944, when a constitutional amendment was adopted to provide for such a move. More constitutional amendments amend-ments were proposed, incidentally. incident-ally. Appearing on the ballot in 1950 will be the propositions to take the state superintendent of public instruction off the ballot bal-lot and provide his selection by the state board of education. Another An-other proposed amendment would raise legislators' salaries from $300 per year to $500 year with $5 per day expc money while in session. Another bill which was ki! for the third time in six yj was a horse race measure wl passed the Senate again and in the House. The bill this t would have permitted p mutuel betting but limited i meets to five days and restric them to two meets in e county per year. Several tempts were made to lift the late in the session in the He but each one failed. Few of the governor's pointments were turned di by the Senate. Mrs. J. L. ( son, Salt Lake City, was fin: named on the University Utah board of regents al with five other new mem) after the Senate had refusec accept either Dr. James Ke or Jeannette Garner. Ken S was named director of the V Department of Veterans Aff after the name of E. T. O'Bi was refused. bills 48 Senate and 68 House 11 joint resolutions, a concurrent concur-rent memorial, a concurrent resolution res-olution and several intrahouse resolutions. Most notable on the negative side was the failure of moves to repeal the Clegg-Vest labor law, Utah's "Little Taft-Hartley," and the welfare lien law, both of which were enacted by the Twenty-seventh Legislature in regular and special session. These two moves were right out of the Democratic platform of last fall and they moved thru the Democratic controlled House but died in Senate sifting. Left out of the appropriations bill and given none of the motor vehicle registration funds from which it had drawn its finances, the State Publicity and Industrial Indus-trial Development Department was allowed to die. Even a bill to give a substituting State Parks and Publicity Department $100,000 for the biennium failed to come out of House sifting after aft-er passing the Senate. Also failing to get necessary support for passage were bills to reorganize various state departments, depart-ments, particularly a set of Senate Sen-ate bills to remove the state insurance in-surance department from the businesss regulations and a set of bills to reorganize the State Public Welfare department. Both were passed by the Senate but not by the House. Among additional proposals to fail was a set of optometry bills to set the profession apart and to provide a code of ethics, including the restriction of advertising. ad-vertising. The biennial attempt to eliminate itemized disbursements disburse-ments from published financial statements of school districts also went its usual way to die in ci-f ti n cf passed both houses in its original orig-inal form after a week of bickering bick-ering between the House Democrats Demo-crats and the entire Senate over whether or not the amendments of the upper house in cutting $930,000 out of the allocations was proper. . Municipalities and counties made the largest financial gains of the session, getting all of the motor vehicle registration monies mon-ies thru the B and C road fund. Heretofore at least $600,000 has been taken out for the Publicity and I n d u s t rial Development commission. Somewhat of a new course was taken by the Legislature in the matter of adding county roads to the state road system. After a debate over the bill to designate certain roads to the state network, it was decided on motion of Sen. Orrice C. Mc-Shane Mc-Shane (R-Beaver) to eliminate all but three of the new sections. sec-tions. One of the added roads was the "Hite road," connecting US 66 with southeastern Utah via Hanksville. Another was a three-mile stretch in west Iron county near Beryl to connect the state road with a county road, while the third is in Wayne county from Fremont to Loa. While the session passed legislation leg-islation to ratify the Colorado River Upper Basin States compact com-pact and to provide a means of paying for damage caused by game animals by using an increase in-crease in license fees for a claim fund, several agriculture bills failed. One of these would have provided funds for taxes paid in gasoline purchased for non-highway non-highway use. Also killed, however, was a measure to eliminate the tax on Of the legislation passed, two I measures likely to bring the most comment in days to come n are the record $52,000,000 ap-l propriations bill and a measure B to set up a state-wide retirement B system for public employes. B The latter might draw a veto B from Gov. J. Bracken Lee be- cause of the debate against actu- H arial soundness of the system B and because a joint resolution I was passed ordering the Utah 1 Legislative Council to study re- tirement systems of the state on I an actuarial basis. I It was the big appropriations bill that held up adjournment B until after deadline. It finally B |