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Hopes for restoring a ballot initiative system in Mississippi are alive again as the Mississippi Senate reopened the possibility one week after a Senate leader killed the legislation last week amid differences with the Mississippi House.
Mississippi citizens will not be able to organize and vote on issues using ballot initiatives again any time soon after a Mississippi Senate leader allowed legislation that would have revived the option to die on calendar due to multiple concerns.
Efforts to expand Capitol Police’s jurisdiction over the City of Jackson and to reintroduce a more limited citizen-led ballot initiative process remain alive in the Mississippi Legislature.
An “overwhelming” bi-partisan majority of likely Mississippi voters want the Legislature to restore the ability of voters to put issues on the ballot and vote on them through ballot initiatives, a new survey shows.
“Remember: Your vote is your voice, so get out and vote on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022, and exercise one of your greatest civil liberties. If you will be out of the county on Election Day, make plans to cast your absentee ballot in advance.”
When Magnolia State state residents rejected the Personhood Amendment ten years ago this week by a 58%-to-42% vote, they defied national expectations. The Personhood Amendment, also known as Amendment 26, would have enshrined a definition of the word “person” in the state constitution that would have included even fertilized human eggs, theoretically banning all abortions.
Christine Loftin believes medical marijuana could save the life of her son, Bryan, who has mitochondrial disease. But more than a year after Mississippians voted to enact a medical marijuana law, Gov. Tate Reeves has not called a special session to create a program.
A group of voters is asking the Mississippi Supreme Court to allow them to intervene for a rehearing in Watson v. Butler and to reconsider its decision to strike down Initiative 65, the voter-approved medical marijuana law, and to revive the state’s ballot initiative law, which a 6-3 majority of justices nullified as part of its ruling.
State leaders are considering the prospect of a special session to repair Mississippi’s ballot initiative law after the state Supreme Court nullified it earlier this month in a decision that also killed the voter-approved medical-marijuana law. But even if lawmakers come to the rescue to quell widespread voter anger, some will use the opportunity to weaken direct democracy in the Magnolia State, one Jones County Republican is warning.
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