Besides that, doesn't it make sense to ask all Utah taxpayers, big corporations included, to pay a fair share of taxes, especially for educating the young workers businesses need, some legislators argue?

But the Legislature is more than two-thirds Republican. And many of the GOP members are successful businessmen and women, either running or owning some of these firms.

And I can't remember a session where so many legislators have declared from the chambers or in committees that the Utah Legislature is business-friendly.

Lawmakers also talk a lot about how much they fund public education (and they do).

Still, the vote to phase out the state corporate income tax will be a telling one.

As in other sessions, many of the controversial ideas or bills have already been killed, often through the face-saving measure of sending the issue to interim study.

Gone is the bill that would have repealed Utah's no-fault divorce law. A Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll by Dan Jones & Associates found opposition to the repeal. And no doubt its sponsor, Rep. Peggy Wallace, R-West Jordan, was pounded over her repeal idea. She wisely didn't push it this session.

A senator also decided not to pursue the dubious idea of allowing gun owners who had not received concealed weapons permits to carry loaded guns in vehicles.

Besides phasing out the corporate income tax, this session may be the breakthrough for tuition tax credits.

With former Govs. Mike Leavitt and Olene Walker opposed to the measure, opponents in the House (where it had stalled previously) lost a powerful ally when Huntsman, who favors the idea, came into office in January.

The legislative fiscal analyst says the bill will save the state $3.4 million next year, but opponents disagree with that assessment. HB39 has gone through a number of changes — from including parents who currently send their children to private schools, to only allowing new private-school children to be eligible for personal income tax credits.

Finally, like other general sessions, various attempts at so-called legislative reform have died. Indeed, the only "reform" measure that may pass is a constitutional two-term limit for the governor, a change coming at the request of Huntsman himself.

Why would legislators, who repealed their own 12-year term limits several years ago, want to term-limit the governor? Partly they do it because their party leader asked them to, but any number of legislators may want to run for governor themselves some day, and a few were displeased when Leavitt ran for a third term (and won) in 2000.

Watch to see if lawmakers limit the lobbyist revolving door for top state executives and limit gubernatorial campaign contributions (two reforms Huntsman also wants), because — who knows? — those limits could harm the financial or political ambitions of some legislators some day.

The 2005 Legislature has done a lot of good work. Legislators, as always, have left some critical issues unfinished.

Politically opposed on some balance-of-power issues early on, Huntsman, too, comes out of his first session with about everything he wants.

The good thing about the Legislature is that it meets and does the people's business. An equally good thing is that it adjourns the first week in March.

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Deseret Morning News political editor Bob Bernick Jr. may be reached by e-mail at bbjr@desnews.com