“Noooo!” the vast majority of House State Affairs Committee members shouted for voice votes on two controversial bills aimed at overhauling the state employee retirement system last week.
Despite what sounded like no more than one or two of the 11 members present saying “Yes,” Committee Chairman Hank Zuber, R-Ocean Springs, ruled each time that the yeses had it. The bills were moved forward. He ignored pleas from several members, including his committee Vice Chairman Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, calling for real vote counts.
A similar “vote” transpired in the House Education Committee recently, with members’ pleas to Chairman Rob Roberson, R-Starkville, for a real vote count being ignored on a hot-potato bill and a voice vote sounding uncertain.
This has drawn criticism from some lawmakers and advocates and renewed questions of whether committee hearings and votes are just to rubber stamp what legislation the GOP leadership has decided it wants to move forward.
In recent years, particularly in the House, publicly held committee hearings and votes have become pro forma. Real decisions appear to be hashed out, and straw polled, in closed door Republican Caucus meetings.
And given the GOP holds a supermajority, it’s akin to the House holding secret sessions and votes on legislation.
Also recently, in a lawsuit brought by the Mississippi Free Press over the closed-door caucus meetings, a Hinds County judge ruled the Legislature is not subject to the state’s open meetings law — that the Legislature imposes on other state and local government bodies.
These are ill omens for the public and press and their right to witness what their elected lawmakers are doing, including how they spend billions of tax dollars. It also concentrates legislative power to a very small handful of folks, and it strips rank-and-file lawmakers of input or even the ability to speak out on issues.
Vice Chairman Johnson, who’s also House minority leader, said he believes House rules require chairmen to allow a roll-call or counted vote when requested. But House Speaker Jason White, Zuber and others have argued that’s not the case.
House rules are unclear or conflicting. One passage says the House shall allow “division” or a counted vote if 1/5 of members demand it. Another says committees will follow the rules for the full House, but then goes on to make that sound optional.
Johnson, along with opponents of the PERS changes in the two bills, which included some of the universities’ lobby, were angry and cried foul after the non-vote votes.
“Most committee chairmen have always abided by, if one person wants a roll call, they do it,” Johnson said. “There were only 11 members in the room, and you heard it, several called for a roll call. This is the second time this session this has happened.
“Now you can’t even vote in committee,” Johnson said. “We have not formally addressed this with the speaker yet, but I think we will. We just can’t operate that way.”
Oddly, the two PERS bills that caused the dustup both died — without a vote — after they were forwarded to another committee. Apparently a tentative deal the leadership had on the measures fell through, so the chairman of the second committee let them die with a deadline without calling them up.
WATCH
Quote of the Week
“I want my sweet potato. Everybody got one but me. Somebody stole mine. I want it back.” — Rep. Willie Bailey, D-Greenville, in a committee meeting last week before a vote on a measure to make the sweet potato the official state vegetable. Before an earlier House vote weeks ago, sweet potatoes were placed on lawmakers’ desks.
In Brief
Clark laid in state at Capitol
Robert Clark, elected in 1967 as Mississippi’s first Black lawmaker in the modern era and who rose to the second-highest leadership role in the state House of Representatives, laid in state at the Mississippi Capitol on Sunday.
Hundreds came to the Capitol to pay tribute to Clark who was a lifelong advocate for public education and Black representation in state and local government. As chairman of the House Education Committee, he played an instrumental role in the transformational Education Reform act of 1982 that saw the establishment of public Kindergarten statewide.
House Speaker Jason White, who is also from Clark’s native Holmes County, told House members last week that Clark was “a trailblazer and icon for sure”who had always been gracious to him. The House and Senate last week held a moment of silence in his honor. — Taylor Vance
Paid family leave bills survive
Two bills to create paid family leave for state employees survived a crucial deadline in the Legislature.
Both bills would give state employees who are primary caregivers six weeks of paid leave – although the original House version offered eight weeks for primary caregivers and two weeks for secondary caregivers.
If either bill is signed into law, it would apply to employees working for state government agencies but would not include public school teachers. – Sophia Paffenroth
DEI restrictions to be ironed out in conference
Senate and House lawmakers aim to negotiate in conference a final proposal to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs from the state’s public schools.
One sticking point between the chambers is whether to keep legislation aimed at the state’s universities and colleges, as the Senate bill does, or to include K-12 schools, as the House bill does.
The Senate Universities and Colleges Committee this week inserted language from the Senate DEI ban into the House bill, while the House let the Senate bill die. The move sets up negotiations down the road in a conference committee.
The measures passed by each chamber differ in who they would impact, what activities they would regulate and how they aim to reshape the inner workings of the state’s education system. The Senate bill also would create a task force to look for inefficiencies in the state’s higher education system. The House bill contains a provision that would force all public schools to teach and promote that there are two genders. It also threatens to withhold state funds based on complaints that anyone could lodge. – Michael Goldberg
Medicaid expansion vehicle alive; passage unlikely
One bill that could act as the vehicle for Medicaid expansion is alive in the Legislature, though lawmakers have made it clear that expansion is unlikely to come up this year with a sea change to Medicaid funding expected to take place under the new Trump administration.
Senate Bill 2386 is a “dummy bill,” meaning it brings forth the necessary code sections to expand Medicaid eligibility, but includes no details on the policy. – Sophia Paffenroth
Lawmakers trying to revive PBM measure
A bill pushed by pharmacists that would have strengthened regulation of pharmacy benefit managers died on Tuesday in the House, but Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee members have proposed adding its language to a similar House bill with a strike-all amendment.
Pharmacists prefer the Senate’s language because it would tighten appeal procedures, ensure pharmacy benefit managers promptly pay certain claims, and mandate that affiliate pharmacies are not paid more for dispensing drugs than other pharmacies. – Gwen Dilworth
Nurse scope of practice legislation dies
Legislation that would have allowed advanced practice nurses and certified registered nurse anesthetists with a certain amount of training to practice without a collaborative agreement with a physician died on Tuesday.
After strong lobbying against the bill from the Mississippi State Medical Association and other physicians, House Bill 849 died in the Senate Public Health committee on Tuesday. – Kate Royals
Postpartum depression screening bill dies
A bill authored by Sen. Nicole Boyd, R-Oxford, that would require health care providers screen mothers for postpartum depression and prohibit insurance companies from implementing step therapy protocol for FDA-approved postpartum depression drugs also died on deadline day.
House Accountability, Efficiency and Transparency Chair Kevin Ford, R-Vicksburg, did not bring up SB 2874 in his committee. – Kate Royals
Senate trying to revive CON reform
A bill that would have reformed the state’s certificate of need law died, but the Senate Public Health and Welfare committee proposed that some of the bill’s language be added as a strike-all amendment to HB569.
The prevailing proposal would raise the capital expenditure limits for health care facilities and order the Mississippi State Department of Health to study the exemption of small hospitals from being required to acquire a “certificate of need” from the state to open dialysis and geriatric psychiatric units.
It would also require the department to study the feasibility of requiring acute adult psychiatric units to treat a certain percentage of uninsured patients and exempt the University of Mississippi Medical Center from certificate of need requirements in a certain area in Jackson. – Gwen Dilworth
By the Numbers
479
The number of bills alive in the Legislature after last week’s committee passage deadline, according to Mississippi Statewatch legislative tracking service. Normally, at this point in a legislative session, there would be hundreds more alive. Senate committees last week killed 85 bills the House had passed, and House committees killed 105 bills the Senate had passed. There were 3,216 bills introduced this session.
Full Legislative Coverage
New Mississippi legislative maps head to court for approval despite DeSoto lawmakers’ objections
Voters from 15 Mississippi legislative districts will decide special elections this November, if a federal court approves two redistricting maps that lawmakers approved on Wednesday. Read the story.
Lawmakers honor longtime journalist Emily Wagster Pettus
The Mississippi Legislature on Thursday honored longtime, award-winning journalist Emily Wagster Pettus for her decades of legislative news coverage. Read the story.
PERS overhaul sputters: Securing the future, or giving new state employees ‘worst of both worlds’?
Proponents say failing to make major changes now endangers current employee and retiree benefits and taxpayers down the road. Opponents say drastically reducing benefits for future state employees will make it impossible to recruit, and especially retain, teachers, police and others in relatively low-paying government jobs. Read the story.
Senate says ‘school choice’ transfer bill is dead as House tries last ditch effort to save it
A bill that would make it easier for K-12 students to transfer to other public schools outside their home districts will die in the Mississippi Senate, the chamber’s leaders said as a Tuesday night deadline loomed. Read the story.
House chairman pushes for absentee ballot expansion instead of early voting
Elections Committee Chairman Noah Sanford has successfully pushed some House members to scrap a Senate proposal to establish early voting in Mississippi and expand the state’s absentee voting program instead. Read the story.
Trailblazing Mississippi lawmaker Robert Clark dies
Robert Clark, the first Black person elected to the Mississippi Legislature in the modern era, has died at age 96. Read the story.
Mississippi lawmakers keep mobile sports betting alive, but it faces roadblock in the Senate
A panel of House lawmakers kept alive the effort to legalize mobile sports betting in Mississippi, but the bill does not appear to have enough support in the Senate to pass. Read the story.
House absentee voting plan might still require voters to lie
The worst-kept secret about Mississippi’s elections is that any voter can vote by absentee each cycle if they are willing to lie. Read the story.
Key lawmaker reverses course, passes bill to give poor women earlier prenatal care
A bill to help poor women access prenatal care passed a committee deadline at the eleventh hour after a committee chairman said he wouldn’t bring it up for a vote. Read the story.
Legislation to license midwives dies in the Senate after making historic headway
A bill to license and regulate professional midwifery died on the calendar without a vote after Public Health Chair Hob Bryan, D-Amory, did not bring it up in committee before the deadline Tuesday night. Read the story.
Podcast: Mississippi Legislature enters homestretch, still facing uncertainty from Trump admin maneuvers
Mississippi Today’s politics team outlines some challenges lawmakers face in the final month of their session from uncertainty of the affects Trump administration moves will have on the state level. They also discuss what lived and died with last week’s deadline for committee passage. Listen to the podcast.
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