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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.
With immense public pressure—and scorn—following the decision to scrap a wildly successful ballot initiative and the entire process alongside it, it seems likely that Mississippians will have access to some form of initiative and referendum process by the end of next year. But both the reasons for the initiative’s return in the 1990s and the explanation for the Legislature’s failure to adapt the process after the state lost its fifth district remain a subject of debate.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves says he still opposes expanding Medicaid in Mississippi even though the federal government is offering to give the state an extra $600 million to do so over a two-year period.
Medicaid expansion for 300,000 Mississippians died, but a key provision extending postpartum Medicaid coverage for pregnant Mississippians survived. If S.B. 2799 passes the House and the governor’s desk, Mississippians will qualify for Medicaid for a full year after the end of their pregnancies, up from a mere 60 days of coverage currently.
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