The Daily Alaska empire., 1951-03-09
INCREASE IN SALMON TAX
 APPROVED
By JIM HUTCHINSON

yesterday for 50 per cent increase in the canned salmon tax and then wound up the day with one of it's liveliest scraps.
 The vote for the boost in the salmon tax was 10 to G. Indications were that, if approved by the House and enacted into law, it would add s700,C00 or more year to the Ter ritorial treasury on the basis of she 1850 pack.
 It is the second tax-boosting bill to pass the Senate. t.ie first was the bill to hike the cigaret tax to five cents a pack. Neither bill has reached the House floor yet.
 The oenaues closing clash came over the controversial 0-hour-week- and d-then-overtime bill that has been bouncing around like hot po- tato for a couple of weeks. It is House Bill 12.
 The Senate received a message that the House had refused, by a 12-12 split, to concur in the long list of exemptions the Senate had written into the Carlson bill.
 Sen. Anita Garnick started the ball rolling again with motion that the Senate recede from it's amendments. The move was blocked.
 After a squabble over whether a conference committee should be named at the same tine message was sent to the House on the Sen- ate's refusal to recede from it's amendments, President Gunnard Engebreth ruled that the committee should be named.
 He named Senators Garnick and Howard Lyng. from the ranks Of those who voted for the bill, and William Beltz, representing the may" minority.
 Pot BOils
 That set the pot boiling. It meant two opponents of the Senate amendments, Miss Garnick and Beltz, would compose a majority of the Senate committee, although the Senate majority had voted for the bill.
 Beltz got on the may" side by changing his vote at the last mo- ment, after having voted yea dur ing the rollcall. He obviously did it with an eye toward getting on the conference committee as may" voter.
 Sen. James Nolan bobbed up to protest. without mentioning Beltz by name. He said the representative of the losing side should be some one who had voted the way he actually thought"
 Sen. John Butrovich also leaped into the fray with an objection to Beltz.
 You are. ln effect, not following the rule of the Senate" the Falr- banks Republican told President Engebreth. T disapprove heartily, although I voted to sustain your ruling that conference committee should be named
 Engebreth suggested Lyng was ln the same boat with Beltz, was doing as Beltz did, but on the opposite side. with an eye on the conference committee. Lyng immediately re- torted that he had said at the time that his vote was being influenced "only in part" by that consideration.
 Complaints Made
 Sen. Steve McCutcheon came to the support of Engebreth and Beltz with the contention that it was nothinp new for legislator to switch his vote as conference committee tactic; that it had been done often before.
 After Elton Engstrom had added his complaint to Nolan's and Bu- trovich's. Engebreth cracked the gavel, cited rule against sen ator maligning the presiding of- ficer and declared
 .sThe chair will not tolerate any more criticism of it's action"
 A motion to adjourn broke up the scuffle.
 If you wonder why the senators spend so much time sparring at the onening of the session about elec- ton of the president. there's good example. It's his power in ap- pointing conference committees which are weighted one way or the other that makes both factions wary of the opposition getting the clair. It was Beltz' vote at the start of the session that broke the deadlock and gave the presidency to Enge- breth for the second straight ses- sion).
 The salmon tax bill is a substi-