Senator Shugars', "no vote explantion"

Admin003 — Wed, 14 Aug 2002 18:16:09 GMT

Senator Shugars, under his constitutional right of protest (Art. 4, Sec. 18), protested against the passage of Senate
Bill No. 1322.
Senator Shugars’ statement is as follows:
I voted “no” on all the conference report bills and House Bill No. 5883, which was the one dealing with the SBT. I also
voted against the cigarette tax because I heard and felt strongly that what’s going to happen is that we are going to
postpone the cut of the SBT tax from 1.9 percent to 1.8 percent therefore, increasing taxes on businesses and also
increasing the cigarette tax. I didn’t think that was the best way to deal with a proposed budget deficit. I felt it would
be better to cut back government spending, government programs, and prioritize what programs and what services were
important to the citizens, and then cut back as much as possible. And though it would be very difficult and a tough
decision, I felt that was much better to do.
A number of my colleagues run for office, and as they run for office, they say we need less government, and I
subscribe to that philosophy, so I voted “no.”
I think the unintentional consequences of the cigarette taxes is going to cause a lot of hardships with businesses
across the lower tier of the state bordering to other states. I feel bad for a lot of those businesses concerning what we
did today. That’s why I voted “no” on all the conference reports and the cigarette tax.

2002 House Bill 5883

admin — Mon, 01 Jan 2001 05:00:00 GMT

Introduced in the House on April 11, 2002, to require the state to rank architects, engineers, surveyors, and contractors bidding on construction projects on the basis of qualifications, and seek to “negotiate a satisfactory contract” first with the top ranked firm, then with the second, etc. “Satisfactory contract” is not defined. Under current law, contracts go to the lowest qualified bidder

The vote was 100 in favor, 1 opposed and 8 not voting

(House Roll Call 654 at House Journal 40)

Click here to view bill details.

Economy

Senator Shugars', "no vote explantion"

2002 House Bill 5883