Evening star., 1944-02-02
Sales Tax Bill
|Cutto2Pct.
||sSought
Lower Levy Seen
Ample for Virginia
School Needs
BY the Associated Press.

BY the Associated Press.
RICHMOND, Feb. 2-The rate for
the sales tax school bill, now pending
before the Senate Finance Commit
tee, would be reduced from to 2 per
cent under an amendment which
Senator Y. Melvin Hodges, South
Hill, said today he was offering for
his own bill.
Senator Hodges said he had de-
cided that per cent sales tax, to-
gether with the appropriation pro-
vided in the Governors budget,
would be sufficient to operate public
schools on the basis asked by the
Virginia Educational Association and
the Department of Education.
This decision, he said, was arrived
at after a thorough study Of the SUBJ
ject with the State Tax Department.
The Hodges bill would earmark
proceeds from the proposed sales tax
for school purposes.
The Department of Education has
recommended a minimum of $1,000
in State aid per school distribution
unit as compared with the Gov
ernor's budget recommendation Of
s840 for the first year of the bien-
mum and $3.50 for the second year.
Soldier Vote Plan.
The Hodges bill would call for an
immediate sales tax as opposed to
Gov. Darden's recommendation for
a referendum on the question and to
a House joint resolution calling for q
study of such tax.
The two houses of the Virginia
General Assembly had a new recon-
mendation today from the Governor
for extending the voting privilege to
Virginians in the armed forces.
The new proposal is based on an
opinion by Attorney General A. P.
Staples that the requirements as to
registration and payment of a poll
tax are no longer applicable in the
election of Federal representatives
insofar as those in service are con-
cerned because of the War Powers
Act of Congress.
The Governor said he was making
his new recommendation because q
Joint Committee named to co-ordi-
nate efforts of the State and Fed
eral Governments has not been
able to arrive at any definite con-
clusion" in the absence of any def
mite Federal action so far.
College Merger Favored.
The McCue-Randolph bill to con.
vert Mary Washington College at
Fredericksburg into a liberal arts
college for women as an integral
part of the University Of Virginia
at Charlottesville. was reported IA
vorablv yesterday by the House
Schools and Colleges Committee.
The Senate devoted a consider.
able part of its session to debate be-
fore adopting an amendment which
in effect provides two years of
grace" to Wytheville as one of three
meeting places for the State Su-
preme Court of Appeals.
The amendment would postpons
the effective date of the bill elirni-
mating the Wytheville sessions until
after constitutional amendment
can be voted on. The proposed
constitutional amendment would
eventually eliminate Staunton as a
meeting place and limit the sessions
to Richmond
Goode RiI passad
The Senate passed the Goode
Senate bill to prohibit officers hold
Ing insane or inebriate persons in
Jail if hospital facilities are availa-
BILE, unless the person is violent. The
bill also provides for a 30-day in
stead of five-day observation pc
rlod for persons being examined for
sanity, and would eliminate a pres
ent provision of law restricting to
four months the time a mental pa
tient may be kept IN private sani-
tarium.
Another House joint resolution
would declare it the sense of the
General Assembly that the State
Board of Education should adopt a
single basal list of textbooks for use
in the public schools for the duration
of the war.
Delegate Robert j. McCandlish,
Fairfax, introduced a bill to require
out-of-State persons to file dec
laratlon OF intention" with the clerk
OF the proper Circuit Court before
being given the right of suffrage in
this State. Under it no person en-
tering the State after July /, 1s45,
shall be deemed to have gained a
residence as to the right to vote
until one year after such a declara-
| ton is filed.