Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 10, 1990 TAG: 9003102643
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROB EURE POLITICAL WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
A jubilant Wilder announced a signing ceremony for this morning. After the Senate voted 33-6 to approve the measure without debate, Wilder said he would sign the measure as soon as he receives it.
"I'm delighted that my longstanding commitment to provide the people of Virginia relief from this regressive tax has been realized," Wilder said in a statement.
The passage of the repeal, which was tacked on to a related measure on the House floor Thursday, represents the coup of Wilder's young administration.
The governor told reporters he was grateful "after 20 years of fighting for this, to see a form of tax relief granted that is not only understood by the public but readily appreciated."
Senate Majority Leader Hunter Andrews of Hampton, whose bill had been used as a vehicle for the tax-repeal amendment, had been expected to fight the amendment on the Senate floor. But he simply asked his chamber to accept the House amendment. The measure was approved without debate.
In the past, Andrews has fought the repeal of the tax on patent medicines as irresponsible. He lobbied Thursday night against the measure, but he apparently found tax relief too politically popular to defeat. The measure enjoyed bipartisan support in both chambers.
One legislator, speaking on the condition that his name not be used, said Andrews was furious at the House action Thursday, but the powerful senator did not show that on Friday.
Another legislative source said Andrews mustered only 10 votes to oppose the measure by Friday morning. He would have needed 21 to defeat it and ended up voting for the tax repeal himself.
In fact, Andrews distributed to reporters a release listing all the tax benefits the General Assembly has granted to low-income and retired taxpayers, with the repeal of the sales tax on non-prescription drugs in bold type.
The tax repeal measure does not take effect until July 1992, so its passage does not affect the current compromise on the state budget, of which Andrews is the principal author.
But Wilder was threatening to veto a related measure in a move that would have torn the budget compromise apart. That measure, deferring for two years a $22.50 income-tax credit for the poor, raises about $56 million for budget negotiators to spend.
Wilder made it clear to his lieutenants in the legislature that he would veto the tax credit delay unless the tax repeal was approved, but that he would gladly trade the income-tax credit for the more direct tax break.
Friday after the vote, Wilder was elated that his slick parliamentary maneuver around Andrews' opposition had worked. He gleefully said he would invite Andrews to the signing ceremony.
Andrews chairs the Senate Finance Committee, where he can control the fate of such measures. The only other time the Senate approved repealing the sales tax on non-prescription drugs was in 1988, when Sen. Dudley "Buzz" Emick, D-Fincastle, used a similar tactic to get the issue on the Senate floor.
Last year, Roanoke Sen. Granger Macfarlane carried the measure for Wilder, but he lost support in the fury of election-year politics when he enlisted the help of Republican Sen. Eddy Dalton of Henrico, who was running for lieutenant governor.
The House of Delegates passed repeal of the sales tax on non-prescription drugs several times in the 1970s, only to see it die in the Senate.
In Friday's Senate vote, Shawsville's Madison Marye was the only senator from this region to vote against the measure.
by CNB