Medicaid funding could be jeopardized without intervention from Mississippi’s governor after state lawmakers approved a $7.1 billion state budget with a serious flaw during a rushed special legislative session this week. Mississippi House members repeatedly complained that House leadership did not give them a chance to read the bills before voting on them.
Gov. Tate Reeves said in a tweet that he met with Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and senators throughout the day on Thursday and “identified a few minor items that are concerning” in some of the bills. The Republican governor could issue line-item vetoes to toss out concerning parts of the bills while leaving the rest intact, however.
“I believe it is important that the Senate pass these bills as is to get the Session completed and I will use my constitutional authority to deal with the concerning items to protect Mississippi citizens, businesses and taxpayers,” he said.
Lawmakers left about $1 billion in state funds unspent in the budget that the Legislature passed during the special session this week, with some saying the extra money could provide aid if the federal government cuts its funding to the state. But other lawmakers worry that state agencies will suffer and that contracts will not be fulfilled without the additional dollars.
Mississippi House Rep. John Hines, D-Greenville, expressed concerns about state agencies possibly receiving less federal funding in the upcoming fiscal year because of cuts the Trump administration is making.
“This ain’t no kumbaya moment. This is a moment where we’re seeing that the federal government is cutting funds. We just did this huge tax cut,” he said in a House Appropriations Committee meeting on Wednesday. “And next year, when we come back in January, the amount of money we might have will be substantially less than what we have right now. I heard a man say one time that a rainy day fund is for when it’s raining. Well, it looks like the clouds overhead are full of thunder and lightning.”
Most of the state’s agencies will not see a drastic change in their budgets, but some will stop receiving one-time funding because federal appropriations for the COVID-19 pandemic have ended.
House Adjourns Early, Leaving Senate to Find Errors
The House concluded its work in the special session after working all day Wednesday until around midnight to pass all the appropriations bills. The Senate stopped work for the day around 5 p.m. on Wednesday and returned to the Capitol on Thursday without the House, leaving the upper chamber with no choice but to pass the bills exactly as the House approved them or to decline to concur.
On paper, the Mississippi State Department of Health’s budget in House Bill 19 appears to be less than usual, but Mississippi Sen. Angela Burks-Hill, R-Picayune, said the department is not seeing a lot of cuts because some of the funding for certain programs, like the Children’s Advocacy Centers of Mississippi, is going to other agencies that now house those programs.
MSDH’s budget includes a provision that allocates $1.9 million in tax dollars to the Methodist Rehabilitation Center, which Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said in a Thursday press release could jeopardize $900 million the State receives to fund Medicaid from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.
The rehab center does not qualify for the Mississippi Hospital Access Program because it does not have an emergency room. MHAP could have given the Methodist Rehabilitation Center $1.9 million if it had an emergency room. Hill said the Legislature would be giving the rehab center the money to compensate for the loss of the hospital tax, which violates CMS’s regulations.
The Senate voted to pass the legislation despite the error, since the House’s early adjournment foreclosed any opportunities for changes or negotiations. If the Senate did not pass the bill, that would have required the governor to call another costly special session before a July 1 deadline.
Mississippi Sen. Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, said senators should cast votes in favor of the erroneous appropriations bills, assuring them that Gov. Tate Reeves would veto any lines of legislation that could run afoul of federal funding requirements.
During the regular legislative session, lawmakers passed and Reeves signed an income tax cut bill into law with errors that could eliminate the state income tax far sooner than many lawmakers had expected. Some legislators had hoped leaders would fix the issue, but Reeves signed the bill into law as it was.
“Are we going to trust that same process again?” Mississippi Sen. Rod Hickman, D-Macon, asked Blackwell on the Senate floor on Thursday.
“I’m going to trust him. He’s never lied to me,” Blackwell responded.
In the appropriations bill for the Office of the State Public Defender, House leadership allocated $668,000 for a pilot program to help retain rural public defenders in rural areas of the state. Several senators raised concerns over a lack of specifics on where funding for the pilot program would go, but said they would have to vote for the bill because the House had already gaveled out of the special session.
Mississippi Sen. Benjamin Suber, R-Bruce, questioned whether the Senate should pass “bad legislation” just because the House decided to adjourn early. Mississippi Sen. Jason Barrett, R-Brookhaven, said he was voting for the bill despite disagreeing with the pilot program’s funding because they did not want to delay the budgeting process any further.
Mississippi Sen. Jeremy England, R-Vancleave, came to the podium to voice his frustration with the House leaving early without giving the Senate an opportunity to compromise on legislation.
“So, here we are debating something that’s very important to our constituents, and we don’t have the other side of the hall here to discuss this with and to maybe send an amendment in on this one small issue that’s going to hold up an entire bill. And for that reason, I can’t vote against the bill, so the House has essentially held us hostage on that,” he said.
Senators applauded as England concluded his speech.
Mississippi Sen. Nicole Boyd, R-Oxford, clarified that the pilot program would only last one year if the Legislature came back in 2026 and decided not to fund the program for a second year.
After passing the bills, the Senate gaveled out and concluded the special session on Thursday around 6 p.m.
‘Demon Chipmunk’ Technology Returns to House Floor
On Wednesday, House Democrats took turns asking for each bill to be read aloud after the chairmen introduced them on the House floor. Mississippi House Rep. Zakiya Summers, D-Jackson, said in a Facebook post that some Democrats wanted the bills read aloud because leadership did not give representatives the chance to read the legislation before introducing bills on the House floor.
“Voting on any bill to appropriate funds must be more than receiving a packet just before it is time to vote or voting blindly on legislation that we have no idea what it entails,” she said in a Wednesday Facebook post.
In response to lawmakers’ requests to have the bills read aloud, though, the clerk played audio recordings of the bills being read aloud at four times the normal speed. Lawmakers nicknamed the voice the “demon chipmunk.” Mississippi House Democratic Minority Leader Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, said that the House using the speed-reading software to read bills aloud is not new, but that still does not mean it is constitutional.
“They definitely don’t want us to see, hear or know what’s in the bills. That’s why they only give them to us 15 minutes before we go in and don’t give us enough time to read anything. And then when we ask for them to be read, they actually don’t read the bills,” Johnson told the Mississippi Free Press on Thursday.
The House has used the “demon chipmunk” technology to read bills aloud in the House chamber since at least 2012, when a Twitter user created an account called @MSHouseCPUVoice and began posting whenever the software was in use, including on Feb. 5 and May 28. The Senate has a similar account, @MSSen_CPUVoice, that has not been active since March 2022.
After the software read the bills aloud, Mississippi House Speaker Jason White, R-West, did not allow representatives to ask questions about legislation. He said representatives could either have the bills read aloud or ask questions, but not both.
Summers asked White which rule says members must choose either to ask questions or to have the bills read aloud. “The discretion of the chair,” White said. Summers told him that he was violating House Rule 18, which states, “When any member desires to speak, to make a motion, or deliver any matter to the House, he shall rise at his desk and respectfully address himself to ‘Mr. Speaker’ and on being recognized, may address the House from any place on the floor and shall confine himself to the question under debate and avoid personalities.”
White said he is “well aware of that rule” and that it was up to his and the chairman’s “discretion” to determine how to apply it to the chamber.
“Why are you treating your members like this?” Summers asked White.
“Why are we reading bills, lady?” White responded.
“Because we don’t know what’s in the bills. We haven’t even had time to review the bills, Mr. Speaker. You’re asking us to blindly vote for a budget—” Summers began, before White cut her off to call on Rep. Jeffery Harness, D-Fayette, who also asked about Rule 18.
“Same parliamentarian inquiry,” Harness said
“Same answer,” White replied.
Later that day, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann told senators that his chamber would not follow the House’s protocol and would allow senators to debate legislation.
“In our Senate side, you’ll have the ability to ask questions so you should desire,” the lieutenant governor told senators on Wednesday.
In both chambers, many House and Senate Democrats voted against all or almost all of the appropriations bills because they said they did not have the proper time to read the legislation before voting. White said in a Thursday press release that he shared a digital copy of the budget summary with representatives on May 27 and gave them a paper copy before gaveling in for the session on May 28.
“When I was elected Speaker, I stated my goal was to bring more order and timeliness to the budget chaos while allowing all House members time to read and review the spending bills before they are asked to vote on them. While we may not have perfected that process yet, as Speaker, I will maintain the goal of transparency and working in an orderly fashion,” the speaker said in a Thursday press release.
White told reporters at a Friday press conference that he gave representatives ample time to read the bills before passing them, adding that most of his members “know the budget better” than he does. He said the budget proposal was similar to numbers presented to lawmakers in last fall and the bills the House passed during the 2025 regular session.
“While I want the budget process to be more orderly and in the regular session, this idea that … we were reading bills in the House because Democrats didn’t know what was in the bills, that’s just not true,” he told reporters on Friday.
Some Agencies May See Changes
While most agencies’ budgets hover around a similar number to the 2025 fiscal year, a few will be working with different budgets in the upcoming fiscal year.
Senate Bill 2046: The Mississippi Development Authority’s funding is increasing from $21,420,879 to $22,743,323.
House Bill 3: The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality will receive increased funding, taking the agency from $16,759,476 in fiscal year 2025 to $20,747,286 in fiscal year 2026.
House Bill 23: The Mississippi Division of Medicaid will see a jump in funding from $847,968,406 in the 2025 fiscal year to $906,639,774 in the 2026 fiscal year.
House Bill 32: The Mississippi Attorney General’s Office is getting $33,892,028 for the 2026 fiscal year, which is up from $31,355,444 in the 2025 fiscal year. About $2.5 million is earmarked for preventing human trafficking and prosecuting offenders.
House Bill 36: The Public Employees’ Retirement System will see almost $3 million in additional funds in the 2026 fiscal year, rising from $20,968,462 in the 2025 fiscal year to $23,883,545 in the 2026 fiscal year.
Senate Bill 2026: The Mississippi Department of Corrections is getting almost $14 million additional dollars for its 2026 fiscal year budget, going from $424,349,537 in 2025 to $438,203,210 in 2026.
House Bill 42: K-12 public education under the Mississippi Department of Education is set to receive $3,321,581,315 for the 2026 fiscal year, down from $3,325,011,830 in the 2025 fiscal year.
