RULES for the transfer tax
For those following the transfer tax repeal, the measure has popped over from the Senate, where it passed to the House.
When bills cross over that way, the Speaker of the House (Joe Hackney right now) gets to refer them to committee.
The referral for the transfer tax repeal: RULES, if favorable to FINANCE.
Before Hackney's tenure as speaker, a referral to RULES was tantamount to the kiss of death for substantive legislation. It was where former Speaker Jim Black parked bills he didn't want to see go anywhere.
Hackney doesn't seem to have used the referral to rules quite as much, or at least quite as punitively as Black did.
Worth noting, however, is that despite some support in the House for repeal, there is also considerably more resistance to the repeal in the House. More liberal members in particular favor keeping the thing on the books.
So is Hackney parking the bill to die? Or will it become a bargaining chip in the ongoing budget negotiations?
I asked Rules Committee Chairman Bill Owens what the likely fate of the bill was.
First thing, he said, is it probably wouldn't emerge from committee unless the Democratic caucus got together and decided as a group what they wanted to do with the thing.
That said, he's not a fan of the repeal. Owens was one of the people who helped push the transfer tax through as part of a complex deal with the counties over Medicaid funding in 2007.
"This is one of the concessions we gave them," Owens said, saying it didn't sit right to pull it back less than a year after granting the authority. "It's something we should talk about next year in the long session."
Owens, who is a realtor himself, notes as the realtors groups do that the transfer tax has failed on referendums where ever it has been tried. But he has a different take.
"Right now, the people are having their say, what's wrong with that," he said.
From this conversation it sounds like the thing is parked for the year, unless it somehow gets played as part of the ongoing budget negotiations.
Comments (1)
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"From this conversation it sounds like the thing is parked for the year, unless it somehow gets played as part of the ongoing budget negotiations. "
Just as it was last year, despite Hackney's promises to keep special provisions out of the budget in a "new era of open government".
Please...
He broke his own rules for political expediency and because he knew the transfer tax would never pass on a straight up or down vote.
Do the right thing this time Joe.
Repeal the tax.
Posted on June 26, 2008 10:58 PM