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.
The nearly 25,000 Mississippians who use Medicaid health insurance to cover pregnancy will continue to lose their health benefits just 60 days after birth, after a proposed extension fell casualty to a long session of gamesmanship over control of the Mississippi Division of Medicaid. Dr. Charlene Collier, OB-GYN and director of the Mississippi Maternal Mortality Committee, says the 60-day Medicaid cutoff is illogical at best, and deadly at worst.
House Bill 1439, authored by Speaker Phillip Gunn, purports to eliminate the income tax and stimulate the economy. Still, it dramatically increases taxes in at least 28 other areas, including agricultural equipment, automobile sales, manufacturing machinery and a sizable across-the-board sales tax increase on all items.
Jackson Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba and Lt. Gov Delbert Hosemann met today at the Capitol for a “respectful conversation,” in the mayor’s words, to discuss a concrete plan to address Jackson’s short-term water-system needs. The meeting was a preface to the much more complex discussion of how to permanently address the city’s aging water infrastructure.
The Mississippi Legislature’s efforts to introduce new purges of registered voters have run out of time in 2021, a casualty of a tighter session than
Mississippi’s K-12 public-school teachers may still get a $1,000 pay raise after lawmakers in the House and Senate reached a last-minute agreement. Some feared the raise could become a casualty amid a legislative impasse over a House tax-reform bill.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann first addressed House Speaker Philip Gunn’s comprehensive tax-cut bill with a spoonful of sugar at the Stennis Press Forum today, praising the speaker, a Clinton Republican.
After that, it was all medicine.
Mississippi’s history board should remain free from political interference, historians from across the state are telling House lawmakers, asking them to oppose Senate Bill 2727.
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