John Briston Sullivan's petition to buy land across from Littauer for a building on stilts passed to a third and final reading in the House yesterday, as Cambridge legislators revealed that the Attorney General's office was investigating their financial ties with the bill.

Attempts by Rep. Mary Newman of Cambridge to amend the bill so that the sale would have to pass a popular referendum at the polls in November also failed, 125 to 90. It is definitely expected that the bill will pass the House today.

Rep. John J. Toomey and Rep. George W. Spartichino, two of the bill's sponsors, told the House that Assistant Attorney General Gerald A. Berlin had sent state police to question them about alleged financial involvement in the affair.

Calls for End to Rumors

Toomey assailed "the way in which members of the legislature have become whipping boys of some members of the Commonwealth." "What gall and what small minds some of the people in Cambridge have," he declared. "It is time for the Legislature to put a stop to this kind of rumor."

As for the bill itself: "It's a home rule bill, that's all it is," Toomey emphasized. It would mean "permitting the Cambridge City Council to do as they see fit."

Rep. Spartichino agreed with Toomey about the "dastardly" quality of the accusations and the necessity for home rule in Cambridge. "Very seldom do I take the microphone, but today I have to take it," he declared. He told the House that Berlin (a member of the Cambridge Civic Association), had sent two state troopers to "ask me if I had any financial ties with this bill."

Spartichino also spoke of a phone call from a lady who told him politicians are "a bunch of thieves, liars."

Mrs. Newman proposed the amendment to the bill, H. 477, only after the Toomey-Spartichino forces defeated her in an attempt to postpone the bill to the next session of the Legislature. She defended the amendment on the grounds that, "If home rule is what we desire at this time, the people of Cambridge should have the final say."

Opposes Private Sale

Joining with Mrs. Newman was Rep. Freyda Koplow of Brookline, who opposed the "sale of public park land for private purposes." Professional people have declared the bill unsound and the MTA has taken no stand on the issue, Mrs. Koplow maintained. "We should not sell the land for the benefit of John Briston 'Stilts' Sullivan."