State Legislature to Meet Tomorrow

Although the state legislature will reconvene tomorrow, it will not vote on any major issues, such as amendments to Proposition 2 1/2, for weeks, maybe even months.

Committees--whose membership is still uncertain--will begin considering bills at the end of the month. In the House alone, more than 6600 bills have been filed, a clerical assistant said yesterday, adding, however, that most of them are "refiles" of bills previously rejected.

Michael Capuano, legal counsel to the House Taxation Committee, said yesterday he knows of no bill to repeal the tax-cutting Proposition 2 1/2 outright, but that all sorts of amendments have been proposed.

"So far, there are no coalitions for any individual changes, but there are different people throwing in suggestions," Capuano said. Many of them overlap on proposals to override some of the mechanisms and override restrictions of the amendment. Cities and towns can override Proposition 2 1/2 only in a biennial election.

But the proposition has also sidelined many other tax bills, whose effect it determines. State Rep. Gerald Cohen, Chairman of the Taxation Committee, has been outspoken in his opposition to amending Proposition 2 1/2.

Committees like the Ways and Means will be analyzing the performance of state agencies and housekeeping until the governor's budget is released January 28. During January other committees will be holding informal sessions and selecting their members.

The House Urban Affairs Committee, like most others, is waiting for lists of bills to come in before beginning its hearings. "When the first bulletin comes out, it will be the first inkling of what we'll be doing," Larry Smith, a committee researcher, said yesterday.