Lawmakers debate multiple property-tax measures as mileage, sales-tax and freezes collide

Representative votes on three linked measures and an amendment dominated the House floor on March 10 as lawmakers debated different approaches to property-tax relief for homeowners.

Representative Carrie Goodwin, sponsor of an amendment to Senate Bill 169, told the House "this is the year to cut property taxes. Our proposal cuts property taxes 35% to every owner occupied homeowner." Goodwin's amendment (169D) proposed funding the relief by raising the state sales tax from the current 4.2 percent to 5 percent and setting owner-occupied general-education and special-education levies to $0 for the year specified in the amendment, a change she described in floor remarks. Supporters said the plan would produce immediate, easy-to-explain relief for homeowners; opponents said it would shift taxes onto renters, tourists and agriculture and increase state sales taxes on lower-income residents.

The House approved Representative Goodwin's amendment on a narrow floor vote (ayes 35, nays 34, excused 1), but the full bill, Senate Bill 169 as amended, later failed to secure the two-thirds majority needed where required and lost final passage (ayes 27, nays 42, excused…