Keeping Up with Uncle

With the Federal Government be coming increasingly active in every field from education to health, couldn't the states ease up at least a little on their own projects? Seemingly not. As more Governors were sworn in last week, the plans they submitted rivaled Washington's in ambition and variety. With one difference: while Lyndon is cutting taxes, most of the Governors have to raise them.

> New Jersey Democrat Richard J. Hughes, planning to seek a second term next fall and facing a hostile, Republican-dominated legislature, tossed off a 31,700-word message in the Great Society vein, designed to make sure "that New Jersey does not become a grim preview of a polluted, congested world of the future." His new programs would add $153 million to the $634 million state budget. Hughes wants a state sales or income tax, which the legislature--under federal court order to reapportion itself and stand for re-election next November--is not about to give him.

> Iowa Democrat Harold Hughes's problem is too many Democrats. He won his second term by the biggest margin (430,479 votes) of any candidate in state history, bringing with him nearly 100 new Democrats, most without previous legislative experience or special loyalties to the Governor. He hoped they would stay in line. "In this hour of unlimited promise," he said, "no lowan can afford to be antibusiness, antilabor, anti-farmer, anti-government or anti-progress." He also meant anti-Hughes.

> Indiana Democrat Roger D. Branigin stepped into his first term as Governor, whipped through a seven-minute inaugural address, followed next day with a legislative message that lasted all of 14 minutes. Apparently as tight fiscally as he is verbally, Branigin moved against the trend, urged the Democratic legislature to repeal some $40 million in state and local taxes over the next two years.

> Arkansas Democrat Orval E. Faubus began his record sixth term by asking the legislature to 1) pass a constitutional amendment calling for reapportionment on a basis other than population, and 2) send it to "this misguided group of people who are supposed to be judges on the Supreme Court." Then Faubus got busy trying to make good on two campaign promises: a multimillion-dollar road-building program and a $1,000 raise for each of Arkansas' 16,756 public-school teachers.

> Colorado Republican John Love, halfway through his four-year term, thought he saw storm warnings when he asked for a 1% increase in the state's sales tax and a 2-c--a-pack additional tax on cigarettes. He was right. Not only was Love saddled with his first divided legislature (Republican senate, Democratic house), which boded ill for his tax-increase plans, but even some fellow Republicans were against the idea.

-- Washington Republican Daniel Jackson Evans nearly got into a battle royal with the Democratic legislature even before he was inaugurated. A quirk in Washington state law calls for the new legislature to convene two days before the Governor takes office. Lame Duck Democratic Governor Albert Rosellini tried to get it to pass a blatantly partisan redistricting bill, which sailed right through the senate but failed in a house Democratic caucus by only two votes. Evans is asking for massive aid to education, mental health projects, and streamlining of the state's monumental bureaucracy, which, he was startled to learn, included a furniture and bedding advisory council. Mused Evans: "How you advise on bedding, I'm not quite sure."

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