Food tax exemption clears House; eminent domain bill moving
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Jan 26, 2007 Posted by Bill Luckett
House Bill 93, the bill to make the sales tax exemption on food permanent, cleared third reading in the House on Thursday and now heads for the Senate. For most Democrats, they had to hold their noses a little bit when they voted for the bill, because while everyone favors removing the sales tax on food for good, most of them want to include a provision to reimburse local governments for the lost sales tax revenue. Right now, the bill does not have any way to provide this "backfill" to cities, towns and counties. However, the local governments will be OK until July 2008 (because the two-year food sales tax exemption now in the law allocated $46 million for backfill), so technically, "no harm done" as long as the Legislature comes up with a backfill provision over the next year. Still, Democrats would feel better supporting the bill if it guaranteed local governments they will be held harmless. We'll see if the Senate can amend the bill to take care of local governments.
The House spent five hours Wednesday and Thursday on one single bill: House Bill 124, the eminent domain bill. No matter how you look at it, the bill will increase the rights and protections of landowners who find themselves the target of an eminent domain action by the government. The major debate is, how stronger will their rights and protections be? I spoke separately Wednesday with both Wyoming Stock Growers Association Director Jim Magagna and Wyoming Wool Growers Association Director Bryce Reece, and they were on the same page. First, they said they weren't having much luck with the amendments they favored on Wednesday (story here). But their overriding concern is that the bill survive. They had a little better luck with amendments on Thursday, according to this story, and the bill is scheduled for third reading in the House today.