OCR Text |
Show i UNDER THE CAPITOL j P (Th no c (J IVI , ! Marlowe The one big mystery that re-?' re-?' mained and likely never will ' Some to light this session at the end of the first week in the Twenty-ninth Utah . Legislature i' Was the identity of two Demo- rats actually responsible for Kepublican victory in the House :-r speakership battle. E; For four days 30 Democrats k and 30 Republicans wrangled t r,ver their candidates. Rep. Clif-' Clif-' ion G M Kerr (R-Tremonton) id ReP W G. (Bill) Larson (D-Magna). Democrats wanted to li loss a coin and were against a secret ballot because two of iheir- members admitted in a Sucus secret ballot that they would "have to" vote for Rep- resentative Kerr if the secret 5-. ballot were forced. Knowing of this advantage, the Republicans stuck to their cuns and eventually came out with the speakership for Rep- r resentative Kerr in a "horse I trade." Chairmanship and con-I con-I trol of four major committees, I including appropriations, went to the Democrats in the deal. Rep. Clarence J. Albrecht (DFremont) became the "man of the hour" in breaking the deadlock. Risking criticism of some Democrats, which has iome out in the undercurrent r flowing largely from metropolitan metropol-itan area delegations, the Wayne county lawmaker recommended the deal from the floor near the close of the fourth day. After the issue had been settled, set-tled, Representative Albrecht explained ex-plained that the setup being what it was. the only chance his party had to gain an "even break" was to "horse trade." He claimed it was obvious Rep- ' resentative Larson could not be elected and. that the best proposition pro-position was to get as much committee strength as possible , in a deal. As a result, the Democrat! Dem-ocrat! got the four committees . .and an even break in the re- j maining committees to be named. In reference to his position on Larson, Representative Albrecht Al-brecht pointed out that the Republicans Re-publicans twice had honored forced Democratic absences by holding back a single vote in order to retain the tie. Rep Bar-lo Bar-lo T. Luke (D-Junction) was away for a day because of the death of a niece, while Rep. j Wayne Hinton (D-Hurricane) va-? va-? cated his seat for an emergency '. apendectomy Thursday morning morn-ing Representative Albrecht ai4 he feared that growing' animosity in the House would :reach a point where the Repub-1 Repub-1 Jicans would take advantage of I 4he 30-29 situation and not only I ; seat the speaker but take the ;i. committees. I Earlier the two parties had : agreed to split the patronage, appointing committees to name ihe employees, and it was this spirit that seemed to carry into the final negotiation and on into the session on Friday. Representative Rep-resentative Larson was given the power to name all Democrats Demo-crats on committees, while speaker Kerr will name the Republicans. Re-publicans. Meanwhile, the Seriate organized, organ-ized, with Sen. J. Francis Fowles (D-Ogden) replacing dean of the upper house, Sen. Alonzo F. Hopkin (D-Woodruff) as president, presi-dent, but action of the body was held up until the House organized. or-ganized. Also held up four days was Gov J. Bracken Lee, who was forced to postpone his opening' message from Tuesday morning to Friday morning. Legislators heard from the chief executive a plea to cut taxes and balance the budget. This was a typical Lee "economy" "econ-omy" message. In addition to I his natural opposition to public spending, the governor this time had war and a national emergency to fall back on, pointing point-ing out that so much is needed ' nationally that we must econ-' econ-' omize in the state. 1 Prior to the session, incidentally incident-ally he told reporters that he intended to make a strong point of the national emergency in I his message and that "if neces-' neces-' sary" he would send a remind- er to the lawmakers every day of the session. ) Commentary on the message j was quite generally favorable '. on both sides, Representative : Larson, the House Democrat leader, went so far as to say it ,was a "fine address" and that 1 he wgs in favor of a program which would reduce govern-1 govern-1 mental expenditures. Like others, oth-ers, however, he doubted that j expenditures could be gut very far without endangering neees-isary neees-isary services. I I Senator Hopkin, Senate ma-1 jority leader, commented that the governor is a "courageous defender of his own honest convictions." Senator Elias L. Day (R-Salt Lake), the Senate j minority leader, said the message mes-sage was soundly based in fact and that the governor puts the ; "general welfare" first. Repre- 1 sentative Kerr's reaction was 1 that it was a "typical Governor Lee message, representing a sound approach to the economy of government." Most critical was Sen. Lorenzo Lor-enzo E. Elggren (D-Salt Lake), who said "there's just too much self exoneration. "He said "it i was a message- of defeat" and "obsessed with economy that , tends to creat a standstill in our state functions and services." ser-vices." With the break in the House deadlock, a flood of 33 bills hit the Senate, some of them certain to cause a good deal of debate if they reach the floor. Increases from four to six cents I per gallon in gas and use fuel taxes and a jump in truck license li-cense fees on a graduated scale came in from the Utah Legislative Legisla-tive Council in connection with a proposed highway construction construc-tion program. Talk is that the gas tax increase in-crease may go through at one cent instead of two and that the registration fees will be raised, but not as much as the council bill provides. Also introduced was a measure mea-sure to repeal the welfare lien law, but little chance was seen of its passing. Another question which may get no action is that of reapportionment of the legislature. As yet there does not appear to be enough steam behind either of two propositions proposi-tions advanced. Rural lawmakers lawmak-ers have claimed, however, they have a good chance of getting-over getting-over a proposition to provide two senators from each senatorial senator-ial district and reapportion the House on a population basis. |