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Is ballot initiative a ‘take your picture off the wall’ issue for lawmakers?

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Is ballot initiative a ‘take your picture off the wall’ issue for lawmakers?

In Mississippi legislative parlance, there are rare issues that can “take your picture off the wall” at the Capitol.

This refers to issues about which voters care so deeply that if a lawmaker doesn’t do right by them, they will oust him or her in the next election. Their photo will no longer be in the framed array of the current Legislature.

Monkeying with state retirees’ benefits, massive tax increases — there are only a few singular issues considered to have such statewide, grassroots gravitas. And in general lawmakers either treat them like a third rail on a subway, or else snap-to when it comes to a vote.

Is restoring voters’ rights to ballot initiative — the sidestepping the Legislature and putting an issue directly to a statewide vote — one of those take-your-picture-down issues?

Some elected leaders and candidates believe so. And some recent public polling and social media outcry would appear to back them up. Some citizens groups have tried to organize members to call and write lawmakers about it. Should the Legislature fail again to restore this right, it will likely be a campaign issue in many statewide and legislative races this year.

READ MORE: Restoring Mississippi ballot initiative process survives legislative deadline

A recent poll by Tulchin Research for the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund reported 65% of Mississippi voters surveyed support restoring ballot initiative rights, and only 14% opposed. Support crossed party, age, race and other demographic lines.

There’s no doubt many Mississippians across the spectrum were hopping mad when the state Supreme Court stripped voters of this right in 2021. This was with a ruling on medical marijuana, an instance where voters had taken matters in hand after lawmakers dallied for years on an issue. Legislative leaders were quick back then with vows they would restore this right to voters, fix the legal glitches that prompted the high court to rule it invalid.

But given the way they’ve fiddle-faddled on restoring the right for going on two years now, it would appear some legislative leaders don’t see it as top-of-mind for voters, or don’t believe voters are paying a lot of attention to particulars.

READ MORE: Mississippi Supreme Court strikes down ballot initiative process

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and his Senate Accountability Chairman, John Polk, R-Hattiesburg, in particular, haven’t exactly tripped over themselves in effort to restore voter’s right to a ballot initiative.

Polk’s initial draft of a measure this session essentially would have given voters ballot initiative rights in name only. It would have given the Legislature power to veto or amend citizens’ initiatives before they go before voters, sort of missing the whole point of a ballot initiative. It also would have required, on top of forcing initiative sponsors to collect more than double the signatures previously required to get something on the ballot, that sponsors get at least 10 signatures each from the state’s more than 300 municipalities. This would be a near impossible task.

Even after making some concessions, Senate Bill 2638would still require about 240,000 voter signatures to put something on the ballot compared to about 107,000 under the state’s previous initiative process. The Senate’s demands for requiring a large number of signatures killed reinstatement last year when the House wouldn’t go along.

Polk told his colleagues if he had his way, he’d require even more signatures for voters to bypass the Legislature, and he voted against the measure even though he was the one presenting it for a Senate vote.

Many political observers viewed Hosemann routing the measure to Polk’s committee again this year — instead of the Constitution or Elections committees — as a sign he’s not all that into restoring ballot initiative rights.

Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, before last week’s Senate vote, appeared to warn his colleagues about only paying lip service to restoring the initiative.

“We’re about to find out soon where people really are, when we see if we get a legitimate, workable ballot initiative process,” Blount said. “… We need to be straight with people that we mean it.”

There are reasonable arguments for and against voter ballot initiative.

Voter initiative, a creation of the early 20th Century progressive movement, gave citizens the ability to overcome the influence of big money interests on legislatures, and can still serve as a valuable backstop. There are 25 states with some form of voter initiative or referendum (the power of voters to kill a law).

But Mississippi’s form of government, just like the nation’s, is a representative democratic republic, not a direct democracy where major policy or spending is decided by a majority vote of the masses. Our founding fathers were just as afraid of the “excesses of democracy” as they were of despotic kings, and they believed democracy should be tempered through legislative representation, protective of minority rights, and checked by the judicial and executive branches.

Polk warned last week that out-of-state interests can spend large amounts of money and harness social media campaigns to co-opt the ballot initiative process and force policy that is not truly grassroots.

The issue, as it did last year, will likely come down to House-Senate negotiations on a final version of restoration late in the legislative session.

And given its treatment thus far on High Street, reinstatement of voters’ right to take matters into their own hands is far from certain.

But any lawmakers involved in killing or watering down such rights are taking a risk. And voters could take their pictures off the Capitol walls.

READ MORE: 5 reasons lawmakers might not want to restore the ballot initiative

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1997

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-12-22 07:00:00

Dec. 22, 1997

Myrlie Evers and Reena Evers-Everette cheer the jury verdict of Feb. 5, 1994, when Byron De La Beckwith was found guilty of the 1963 murder of Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers. Credit: AP/Rogelio Solis

The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the conviction of white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers. 

In the court’s 4–2 decision, Justice Mike Mills praised efforts “to squeeze justice out of the harm caused by a furtive explosion which erupted from dark bushes on a June night in Jackson, Mississippi.” 

He wrote that Beckwith’s constitutional right to a speedy trial had not been denied. His “complicity with the Sovereignty Commission’s involvement in the prior trials contributed to the delay.” 

The decision did more than ensure that Beckwith would stay behind bars. The conviction helped clear the way for other prosecutions of unpunished killings from the Civil Rights Era.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

Medicaid expansion tracker approaches $1 billion loss for Mississippi

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mississippitoday.org – Bobby Harrison – 2024-12-22 06:00:00

About the time people ring in the new year next week, the digital tracker on Mississippi Today’s homepage tabulating the amount of money the state is losing by not expanding Medicaid will hit $1 billion.

The state has lost $1 billion not since the start of the quickly departing 2024 but since the beginning of the state’s fiscal year on July 1.

Some who oppose Medicaid expansion say the digital tracker is flawed.

During an October news conference, when state Auditor Shad White unveiled details of his $2 million study seeking ways to cut state government spending, he said he did not look at Medicaid expansion as a method to save money or grow state revenue.

“I think that (Mississippi Today) calculator is wrong,” White said. “… I don’t think that takes into account how many people are going to be moved off the federal health care exchange where their health care is paid for fully by the federal government and moved onto Medicaid.”

White is not the only Mississippi politician who has expressed concern that if Medicaid expansion were enacted, thousands of people would lose their insurance on the exchange and be forced to enroll in Medicaid for health care coverage.

Mississippi Today’s projections used for the tracker are based on studies conducted by the Institutions of Higher Learning University Research Center. Granted, there are a lot of variables in the study that are inexact. It is impossible to say, for example, how many people will get sick and need health care, thus increasing the cost of Medicaid expansion. But is reasonable that the projections of the University Research Center are in the ballpark of being accurate and close to other studies conducted by health care experts.

White and others are correct that Mississippi Today’s calculator does not take into account money flowing into the state for people covered on the health care exchange. But that money does not go to the state; it goes to insurance companies that, granted, use that money to reimburse Mississippians for providing health care. But at least a portion of the money goes to out-of-state insurance companies as profits.

Both Medicaid expansion and the health care exchange are part of the Affordable Care Act. Under Medicaid expansion people earning up to $20,120 annually can sign up for Medicaid and the federal government will pay the bulk of the cost. Mississippi is one of 10 states that have not opted into Medicaid expansion.

People making more than $14,580 annually can garner private insurance through the health insurance exchanges, and people below certain income levels can receive help from the federal government in paying for that coverage.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, legislation championed and signed into law by President Joe Biden significantly increased the federal subsidies provided to people receiving insurance on the exchange. Those increased subsidies led to many Mississippians — desperate for health care — turning to the exchange for help.

White, state Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, Gov. Tate Reeves and others have expressed concern that those people would lose their private health insurance and be forced to sign up for Medicaid if lawmakers vote to expand Medicaid.

They are correct.

But they do not mention that the enhanced benefits authored by the Biden administration are scheduled to expire in December 2025 unless they are reenacted by Congress. The incoming Donald Trump administration has given no indication it will continue the enhanced subsidies.

As a matter of fact, the Trump administration, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is looking for ways to cut federal spending.

Some have speculated that Medicaid expansion also could be on Musk’s chopping block.

That is possible. But remember congressional action is required to continue the enhanced subsidies. On the flip side, congressional action would most likely be required to end or cut Medicaid expansion.

Would the multiple U.S. senators and House members in the red states that have expanded Medicaid vote to end a program that is providing health care to thousands of their constituents?

If Congress does not continue Biden’s enhanced subsidies, the rates for Mississippians on the exchange will increase on average about $500 per year, according to a study by KFF, a national health advocacy nonprofit. If that occurs, it is likely that many of the 280,000 Mississippians on the exchange will drop their coverage.

The result will be that Mississippi’s rate of uninsured — already one of the highest in the nation – will rise further, putting additional pressure on hospitals and other providers who will be treating patients who have no ability to pay.

In the meantime, the Mississippi Today counter that tracks the amount of money Mississippi is losing by not expanding Medicaid keeps ticking up.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1911

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-12-21 07:00:00

Dec. 21, 1911

A colorized photograph of Josh Gibson, who was playing with the Homestead Grays Credit: Wikipedia

Josh Gibson, the Negro League’s “Home Run King,” was born in Buena Vista, Georgia. 

When the family’s farm suffered, they moved to Pittsburgh, and Gibson tried baseball at age 16. He eventually played for a semi-pro team in Pittsburgh and became known for his towering home runs. 

He was watching the Homestead Grays play on July 25, 1930, when the catcher injured his hand. Team members called for Gibson, sitting in the stands, to join them. He was such a talented catcher that base runners were more reluctant to steal. He hit the baseball so hard and so far (580 feet once at Yankee Stadium) that he became the second-highest paid player in the Negro Leagues behind Satchel Paige, with both of them entering the National Baseball Hame of Fame. 

The Hall estimated that Gibson hit nearly 800 homers in his 17-year career and had a lifetime batting average of .359. Gibson was portrayed in the 1996 TV movie, “Soul of the Game,” by Mykelti Williamson. Blair Underwood played Jackie Robinson, Delroy Lindo portrayed Satchel Paige, and Harvey Williams played “Cat” Mays, the father of the legendary Willie Mays. 

Gibson has now been honored with a statue outside the Washington Nationals’ ballpark.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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