Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1903 — WORK OF MANY STATE LEGISLATURES [ARTICLE]

W ORK OF MANY STATE LEGISLATURES

The State civil service bill, with its referendum rider, went to third reading Thursday for final vote some time the following week. Efforts to take off the referendum section failed, and with that effort, desire to amend, it further ended. The House passed the supreme judicial reapportionmerit bill. This is the bill which changes the fourth Supreme Court district so as to make it a Republican district. Judge Carter, who sits on the Supreme bench from that district, is a Republican, and his term expires this year. The game bill, which practically all of the sportsmen’s associations . and hunting clubs have been working for, had to run for its life from amendments. Over in tlie Senate Chicago park bills were to the front, several of them relating to South Park affairs having been passed. The affairs of the Chicago drainage board and the State canal were up in Senate and House committees, and the work done indicated breakers ahead for the drainage board. At the opening of the Assembly session Thursday morning Mr. Ray moved that tlie vote by which the 19S, authorizing county boards to appropriate not to exceed SIO,OOO for soldiers and sailors’ monuments without submitting the question to vote of the people, was non-con-curred in. be reconsidered. The motion carried. GO to 34. Mr. Ray then moved concurrence in the bill. After' over an hour’s discussion the bill was concurred in, 57 to 39. The anti-cigarette bill, prohibiting the sale or importation of cigarettes into the State, was reported favorably for passage by the committee on health and sanitation with an amendment providing that in case the line for violating the law is not paid punishment shall be by imprisonment from thirty to ninety days. Mr. Cady objected to the passage of the bill exempting pianos and organs from taxation. He could hot see why musical instruments should be exempt any more than a pig or a cow. Mr. Timlin spoke for the bill, referring to his experience as an nssessor in Milwaukee, pointing out that it was only the poor people who paid the tax on such instruments. Mr. Doolittle, for the committee, said the bill did not create an additional exemption. The bill was passed by a vote of 70 to 22. The Senate passed a number of bills of varying degrees of importance. Friends of the proposition to exempt mortgage and land contracts from taxation won a decided victory in the Senate Wednesday afternoon, the Kelly bill for that purpose being passed, 17 to 10, Just enough to put the measure through. The principal fighters against the bill were Senators Lockerby, Weeks and Scripps, and there was some warm discussion in committee of the whole. The Ilosse got down to business In good shape, passing a number of local bills, and putting through on third reading ten bills, which measures were agreed to In committes of the whole Tuesday. One of the results of rushing local bills throug without reading them, simply becauso the member or Senator from the district affected says the bill is all right, Is that some wonderful things in way of verbiage arc given the sanction of the Legislature. Although many of these measures are drawn by lawyers who ought to know how to preparo a bill, at least'well enough to make sense, many are put through in such a way that they mean nothing.