Ballot Initiative Revival Efforts Fall to New Chairman
Efforts for Mississippi to revive the ballot initiative system in Mississippi will now fall to Sen. David Parker, a new Senate committee chairman.
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Efforts for Mississippi to revive the ballot initiative system in Mississippi will now fall to Sen. David Parker, a new Senate committee chairman.
Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn announced a bipartisan slate of lawmakers who will comprise his Speaker’s Commission on Life and steer the effort to craft legislation focused on pregnancy, children and families.
Speaker Gunn’s denial of access to House Republican caucus meetings, and position that the gatherings of a majority of House members are not subject to the state’s Open Meetings Act—is part of a long-held strategy of keeping the deliberations of the House GOP outside the view of the press and the public.
Leaders in both chambers of the Mississippi Legislature have reached an agreement on a teacher pay package that would grant the average Mississippi educator a $5,140 pay raise.
Magnolia State educators may soon enjoy an income bump of about $4,850 on average after lawmakers in the Mississippi House and Senate struck a deal this evening to raise teacher pay.Â
The Mississippi Senate approved legislation to reduce the state income tax by hundreds of millions of dollars, despite caution from opponents who questioned the wisdom of doing so while education, roads and other public infrastructure remain critically underfunded.
Of all the priorities in the near future for the short session, none has been more comprehensively discussed, tweaked, debated and recalibrated than the state’s long-awaited medical-marijuana plan. With a supportive majority across both the House and Senate, only Gov. Tate Reeves’ opposition threatens the plan’s adoption.
Mississippi’s Joint Redistricting Committee has released its recommendations for the state’s four new congressional districts, and the result could be a sprawling District 2 for the only Democratic and only Black representative, Bennie Thompson, in a state that is 38% Black.
Mississippi will raise more than $50 million for K-12 schools, colleges and universities by the end of its first full fiscal year on June 30. The education funding comes on top of $80 million that the lottery already raised this year for roads and bridges.
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