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Show SOLONS WIND UP SPECIAL SESSION IN RECORD TIME When the special session of Utah's 20th 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 Otake not less than 10 days and "maybe three weeks." It was a hard-working legislative legis-lative body that got over all the business presented in the call of Gov. Herbert B. Maw, along with providing emergency financial aid to the 1947 centennial celebration cele-bration and adopting two pointed point-ed efforts to keep sections of Utah lands from falling permanently per-manently into federal control. First of all the legislature sent to the people of the state five more proposed constitutional amendments, making eight in all to be placed on the ballot Nov. 5. Two amendments, proposed by the state tax study committee, concerning the financing of a minimum school program on a "flexible basis of more equalized equal-ized taxation and distribution" j passed without amendment. But, because it was deemed "not vi-' vi-' tal" to the school program or Ian urgent need at this time, a j third tax study committee proposal pro-posal to amend the constitution in such a way that all natural j resources, including oil and gas, be taxed the same as metal mines on a net proceeds basis -was killed in the senate after j unanimous passage in the house. I Accepting a proposal of the governor, the legislature also ! sent to the people for vote a con-! con-! stitutional amendment to empower em-power the legislature to change j the location of certain state in-J in-J stitutions to allow the state to i utilize Bushnell general hos- pital for institutional purposes if the $14,000,000 installation is I acquired. Other constitutional ! amendments proposed to the electorate would allow the legislature leg-islature to raise or lower the latter provided as a result of house amendments salaries of state elective officers during a term of office, and to raise but not diminish the salaries of supreme su-preme court and district judges. This would allow the state officials of-ficials and the judges to accept on January 1, 1947, the salaries approved in the 1945 session of ! the legislature. 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 An-other would permit the state to tax federal lands and the other would provide the election of county attorneys every four years, instead of every two years, as at present. Actually the action taken last week on the first six joint resolutions reso-lutions concerning constitutional constitution-al amendments, five of which passed, took care of all questions ques-tions put by the governor. The first four were in the official call and the salary measures were added in his opening message on August 5. Appropriation of a half-million dollars to finance the centennial centen-nial program came after the legislature, leg-islature, in joint session, declined declin-ed to act on a request of the state centennial commission that the law-makers pass a resolution resolu-tion recommending the state board of examiners declare a deficit def-icit not to exceed $500,000 for the commission's use. Both' houses acted on authority author-ity of an opinion from Attorney General 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 of finance for the 1947 celebration. Interest in the amendment See LEGISLATURE Page 5 Legislature - - (Continued from Page One) concerning use of Bushnell was such that it prompted the legislature leg-islature to spend one of the session ses-sion days Wednesday at the hospital in Brigham City. Soon after their return they passed an additional measure setting-up a legislative committee of six, three from each house, to investigate in-vestigate and study advisabilit' of acquiring the installation for institutional purposes. Selection of committee members awaited the governor's signature on the bill. This measure was not passed, pass-ed, incidentally, until after the senate had passed an amendment amend-ment of Sen. Ira Huggins (D-Ogden) (D-Ogden) . providing that none of the $10,000, appropriated in the bill for the committee's use, could be used until after election day, and then only on provision that the electorate accepts the amendment. Two successful measures figured fig-ured in the matter of land withdrawals. with-drawals. One by Senators Warner, War-ner, Kelly, Lund, Melich, Houston Hous-ton and Hopkin, memorializes President Truman and the Secretary Sec-retary of the Interior to deny an application for withdrawal of approximately 3,000,000 acres of land in western Utah for military mili-tary target range purposes. The other, introduced by Senator Melich, was a resolution requesting request-ing the president and the seecre-tary seecre-tary of the Interior to revoke a pre-war withdrawal of magnesium magne-sium and potash lands in southeastern south-eastern Utah. Late in the session the legislature legis-lature gave unanimous approval to a measure memorializing the civil aeronautics board to approve ap-prove airline service between Utah and Arizona for feeder passenger and airmail transportation. transpor-tation. No little attention was gained during the session by law-makers proposing the people vote on whether or not a convention conven-tion be called to revise and amend the constitution. A resolution res-olution to this effect overwhelmingly overwhelm-ingly passed the senate, but it died in the house, where Representative Rep-resentative Frank Bonacci iD-Price) iD-Price) characterized the feeling. feel-ing. In explaining his "no" vote, he said it afforded an oj portunity to "get even with the house of 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 a constitutional amendment to place in the hands of the state tax commission the job of assessing all taxable property in the state. |