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There were also several reform measures in my package, including health insurance for pregnant women and for children; the removal of more than 250,000 taxpayers, more than 25 percent of the total, from the state income tax rolls; and an income tax credit UGG boots outlet store to offset the sales-tax increase for up to 75 percent of the taxpayers.
And for the next sixty-eight days, I worked to pass the program, bringing legislators to my office; going to their committee hearings to argue personally for bills; cornering them in the halls, at nighttime events, or early in UGG boots outlet online the morning at the Capitol cafeteria; hanging around with them outside the chambers or in the cloakrooms; calling them late at night; and bringing opposing legislators and their allied lobbyists together to hammer out compromises. By the UGG boots outlet clearance end of the session, virtually my entire program had passed. The tax proposals received between 76 and 100 percent of the vote in both houses, including the votes of a majority of Republican lawmakers.
Ernest Dumas, one of the states most distinguished and astute columnists, said, For education, it was one of the best legislative sessions in the states history, arguably the best. Dumas noted that we also passed the largest highway program ever; greatly expanded health care for poor families; improved the environment by passing proposals for solid-waste recycling and reduction and for weakening the hand of polluting industries at the states pollution control agency; and spurned UGG boots outlet uk a few religious zealots by providing school health clinics in poor communities.
The legislature had its biggest fight over the school health clinics. I favored allowing the clinics to distribute condoms if the local school board approved. So did the Senate. The more conservative House was UGG Boots uk devoutly anti-condom. Finally the legislature adopted a compromise offered by Representative Mark Pryor, who in 2002 became Arkansas junior U.S. senator: no state money could be used to buy condoms, but if bought with other funds, they could be distributed. Bob Lancaster, a witty columnist for the Arkansas Gazette, wrote a hilarious article chronicling the struggle of the condom Congress. He called it, with apologies to Homer, the Trojans War.
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