Crucial cigarette tax vote may be close

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ A close vote is expected in a House committee this week on Gov. Brad Henry's cigarette tax increase plan, one of scores of bills facing a committee deadline. <br><br>Henry wants

Monday, February 16th 2004, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ A close vote is expected in a House committee this week on Gov. Brad Henry's cigarette tax increase plan, one of scores of bills facing a committee deadline.

Henry wants the people to vote on raising the tax by a net of 52 cents a pack as part of a plan to provide health care coverage to up to 200,000 uninsured Oklahomans.

The second-year Democratic governor wants to use $100 million of the $130 million the bill would raise to secure hundreds of millions of federal dollars to expand health care coverage to uninsured Oklahomans. The bill also would fund a cancer research center.

The House Revenue and Tax Committee is expected to take up the plan Wednesday, even though it was not listed on the panel's preliminary agenda.

That caught the eye of the governor's office, which contacted Rep. Clay Pope, committee chairman, about the bill's status.

Pope, D-Loyal, said the committee is ``kind of in limbo right now'' on the cigarette tax because ``we haven't seen any language yet and we're not passing any shell bills.''

Pope said a representative of the governor's office talked with him after noticing the bill was not on the agenda. The lawmaker said he anticipates a rewritten bill will be forthcoming.

``We fully expect it to be addressed next week,'' Paul Sund, spokesman for the governor, said Friday.

Pope said committee members want to study language on how cities and counties will be protected from losing revenue if sales taxes are taken off cigarettes as proposed by the governor.

He said the committee vote will likely be close and passage may require the attendance of Speaker Larry Adair and Speaker Pro Tem Danny Hilliard as ex-officio, voting members of the tax panel.

The nine-member committee has five Democrats and four Republicans.

Pope said if his questions about the bill are satisfied, he plans to vote for it.

But Rep. John Nance, R-Bethany, committee vice chairman, said he will be a ``no'' vote. ``I haven't seen any language yet and I think we still haven't squeezed everything we can out of the budget,'' he said.

Henry stressed last week that he isn't asking lawmakers to approve a tax increase, just let voters decide the issue.

Three measures proposing statewide votes on fuel tax increases were passed out of the tax committee last week over opposition from Pope and GOP members.

Henry said his cigarette tax plan was strongly backed in public opinion polls and has the editorial support of many state newspapers, including The Oklahoman and the Tulsa World.

``The newspaper editorials and the polls reflect public opinion, and I don't think there's any question that the people would like to have their say on this issue,'' he said. ``The Legislature has a history of submitting questions to a vote of the people. I don't know why health care and tobacco taxes would be treated any differently.''

Other Henry-backed bills headed for a committee vote next week include the governor's lawsuit reform plan, a bill to financially aid residents at the Tar Creek Superfund site and a bill cutting capital gains taxes.

A version of the capital gains bill was passed by a House committee last week and another version is in the Senate Finance Committee.

Thursday is the deadline for House committees to approve House bills and Senate committees to act on Senate proposals.

Also winding through the legislative process is a holdover bill to allow pari-mutuel horse racetracks to have the same electronic gaming devices that more than 80 tribal casinos have.

That would raise an estimated $71 million needed to balance the budget, which includes spending an extra $64 million to fully fund teacher health care coverage.

The cigarette and gaming bills are crucial to making Henry's budget work.

``They are clearly the major pillars of the governor's program, especially the tobacco initiative,'' said Senate President Pro Tem Cal Hobson, D-Lexington. ``That translates into several hundred million dollars when you leverage the Medicaid match for uninsured Oklahomans.''

Hobson said leaders are asking lawmakers to allow voters to make the decision so investments can be made in education.

``This is hardly a tough vote, but to some, I guess it will be,'' he said, predicting a tough fight to pass the measure in the House and Senate.

``The tobacco lobby has not gone away,'' Hobson said. ``There is a reason why the only states with lower tobacco taxes than Oklahoma are generally in tobacco-producing states,'' Hobson said.