OCR Text |
Show Legislature Now in Third Week With Governor Herbert B. Maw's ol6,000,C00 budget before them, 72 bills introduced in the senate and 68 in the house of representatives, representa-tives, the 20th session of the Utah slate legislature completed its i second week fully organized and I ready to devote the remainder of ! the session to actual law making, i Only one bill has reached the i slaty te books thus far and that one provides for the increase in pay of legislators to the newlj authorized constitutional limit of $300 per year. And, speaking of pay increases, there already are pending bills increasing or authorizing author-izing increases for the salaries of all elective and the major appointive appoint-ive state officials, county officials, district attorneys, mayors and city commissioners. Representatives Selvoy J. Boyer (D-Springville) and H. H. Lunt (R-Cedar City) are the bigger-pay advocates in the house while Senator Sena-tor Mitchell Melich (R-Moab), is the major sympathizer with the under-paid officials in the senate. Public servants have come in for other consideration also in a number num-ber of civil service, retirement and pension plans offered in behalf of non-teaching employes in the schools, county firemen, employes of state custodial institutions and the state highway patrol. All of these would be eligible for benefits bene-fits similar to those mow given state wide only to employes of the welfare commission,- the state health board and the department of employment security of the state industrial commission. Senator Sena-tor Taylor P. Brockbank (D-Salt Lake) is the senate spokesman for a inumber of these measures, while Representative T. M. Rees (D-Salt Lake), Burton H. Adams CD-Pleasant CD-Pleasant Grove) and T. Earl Foote (D-Provo) are the house advocates of such measures. No legislature would be complete without some investigations, so the motion of Representative Clifton Clif-ton G. M. Kerr (R-Tremonton) for a house committee to probe the financial operations, and maybe other operations, of the state liquor control commission, hardly came as a corriplete surprise. On this committee are Representatives Adams, chairman; Kerr, Joseph L. Newey (D-Ogden), Kenneth S. Bennion (D-Salt Lake), and Royal J. Brinkerhoff (R-Bicknell). To the house elections committee headed by Representative Joseph E. Rees (R-Morgan) went the house seat contest brought by Republican County Chairman Mark Paxton of Delta against C. E. Freer, ' Democrat, the declared elected representative from Millard Mil-lard county. Decision on the contest iwill probably not be made until the supreme court has decided the pending action for a declaratory judgment in the recount petition of J. Bracken Lee against Governor Maw. Changes in the election law for all offices and for the judiciary in particular are certain to loose a lot of miscellaneous oratory iwhen they come to 1 the floors of the legislature. A headless ballot, (Continued on last page) Legislative Session (Continued from pajre 1) changes in the primary law system, sys-tem, the non-partisan election of judges and such like mean differences dif-ferences of opinion that will be thoroughly aired before the shooting shoot-ing subsides into law. State senatorial sena-torial voting districts are provided in another measure. In this connection considerable interest has been manifested in the proposal of Lawrence L. Rasmus-sen" Rasmus-sen" (D-Summit) to reduce the voting age from 2l to 18 years. He is strongly supported by veterans vet-erans of previous wars and many of the returning veterans of the current upheaval. Labor interests already are on the calendars with bills liberalizing liberaliz-ing the workmen's compensation act, the occupational disease act and the labor relations act. These bills are sponsored by the labor bloc of the house, among them Representatives Frank Benacci (D-Helper), (D-Helper), Mrs. C. L. Jack (D-Salt Lake), Representative Rasmussen, D. S. Walker (D-lSalt Lake), and others. The long standing discussion of the division of the waters of the Colorado river were brought to a legislative focus by the proposal of Smator Melich that a committee commit-tee of the legislature be named to report on the pending treaty between be-tween the United States and Mexico Mexi-co on this subject. The pros and cons of the publication publi-cation by newspapers of the activities acti-vities of county, city and school district financial transactions appeared ap-peared in one house bill and three senate bills. Representative Rees, Salt Lake, would eliminate the detailed voucher description of county disbursement from the county auditor's report. Senator Melich proposes in his three bills to have the counties, cities and school districts publish minutes of their proceedings relating to the allowance of claims, letting of contracts and granting of rebates on taxes or assessments. Looking to post-war" development, develop-ment, several measures dealing with authority of tax imposing political units to set iup planning j committees and other similar i agencies are in the legislative hoppers. More measures of a I similar and related nature are in the making. The governor's desire to retain part of the income from motor vehicle registration and gas taxes is certain to meet legislative resistance re-sistance in the form of bills now pending to prohibit the diversion of such income from state road funds. All in all, the legislators have already set themselves a lot of major problems to deal with, and they show every sign of digging right in for what may be the busiest, and is certain to be one of the most important sessions in the state's history. |