Mississippi Today
New organization pushes Legislature to restore ballot initiative
Leaders of a recently formed organization hope they can finally convince a new slate of state lawmakers to restore a process for Mississippians to bypass politicians at the Capitol and place initiatives on a statewide ballot for consideration.ย
A bipartisan group of political and business leaders from across the state created Ballot Access Mississippi, or BAM, to provide an outlet for voters to advocate the state Legislature to reinstate the initiative.
โIt’s one of those things that everybody is for, but it’s not the main focus of anyone right now,โ said Spence Flatgard, the chairman of the organization. โWe saw BAM as a way to be helpful.โ
The Mississippi Constitution explicitly gives citizens the right to place measures on a statewide ballot for consideration. But the Mississippi Supreme Court in 2021 struck down the state’s initiative process because of a technicality over the number of the state’s congressional districts.
The leaders of the Capitol’s two legislative chambers recently told the reporters they support legislation to restore the initiative.ย
House Speaker Jason White, R-West, told reporters last week that the House will likely vote on legislation early in the session to restore the initiative process.
“It will probably have a slightly higher signature threshold than what we had before the Supreme Court ruled,” White said. “It will probably also include that those initiatives go into statute and not in the Constitution.”
Similarly, Leah Smith, a spokesperson for Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, said in a statement that Senate leaders anticipate they will debate the initiative process with โmore discussion around signature and other requirements.โ
โThe Lt. Governor has consistently said he supports an initiative process,โ Smith said.
The House and Senate, for the last two legislative sessions, failed to reach an agreement over how to restore the initiative process, with the main disagreement between the two chambers centering on how many signatures petitioners should be required to gather.
The prior process required organizers to gather around 106,190 signatures before the initiative could be placed on a ballot. After the court struck down the process, the House wanted a signature requirement similar to the old process, while the Senate wanted a higher requirement.
This year, Flatgard thinks BAM can break through a potential impasse by advocating for the initiative earlier in the session and having the organization’s board members work directly with key legislative leaders.
โWe’re trying to tee it up early, and once it is teed up, we have people on the board who know House and Senate leaders and can help facilitate a resolution that restores the right at the end,โ Flatgard said.
During the 30 years that the state had an initiative, only seven proposals made it to a statewide ballot: two initiatives for term limits, eminent domain, voter ID, a personhood amendment, medical marijuana and a measure forcing lawmakers to fund public education fully.
Of those seven, only eminent domain, voter ID and medical marijuana were approved by voters. The rest were rejected.
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 1750
Nov. 4, 1750
Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, the โFather of Chicago,โ was born.
A man of African descent, he became the first known settler in the area that became the city of Chicago. He married a Potawatomi woman, Kitiwaha (Catherine), and they had two children.
According to records, the property included a log cabin with two barns, a horse-drawn mill, a bakehouse, a poultry house, a dairy, a smokehouse, a fenced garden and an orchard. At his trading post, DuSable served Native Americans, British and French explorers and spoke a number of languages.
โHe was actually arrested by the British for being thought of as an American Patriot sympathizer,โ Julius Jones, curator at the Chicago History Museum told WLS, but DuSable beat those charges.
In Chicago today, a school, street, museum, harbor, park and bridge bear his name. The place where he settled near the mouth of the Chicago River is now a National Historic Landmark, part of the city’s Pioneer Court.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Podcast: Mississippiโs top election official discusses Tuesdayโs election
Secretary of State Michael Watson talks with Mississippi Today’s Geoff Pender, Bobby Harrison and Taylor Vance ahead of Tuesday’s election. He urges voters to remember sacrifices many have made to protect Americans’ voting rights and get to the polls, and he weighs in on whether a recent court ruling on absentee vote counting will impact this year’s elections.
READ MORE: As lawmakers look to cut taxes, Mississippi mayors and county leaders outline infrastructure needs
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Insurance chief willing to sue feds if Gov. Reeves doesnโt support state health exchangeย
State Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney is willing to sue the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services if it does not allow Mississippi to create a state-based health insurance exchange because of Republican Gov. Tate Reeves’ potential opposition.
Federal officials, who must approve of a state implementing its own health insurance exchange, want a letter of approval from a state’s governor before they allow a state to implement the program, according to Chaney.
โI don’t know what the governor’s going to do,โ Chaney told Mississippi Today. โI think he’ll probably wait until after the election to make a decision. But I’m willing to sue CMS if that’s what it takes.โ
The five-term commissioner, a Republican, said his requests to Reeves, also a Republican, to discuss the policy have gone unanswered. The governor’s office did not respond to a request to comment on this story.
Earlier this year, the Legislature passed a law authorizing Chaney’s agency to create a Mississippi-based exchange to replace the federal exchange that currently is used by Mississippians to obtain health insurance. The bill became law without the governor’s signature.
States that operate their own exchanges can typically attract more companies to write health insurance policies and offer people policies at lower costs, and it would likely save the state millions of dollars in payments to the federal government.
Chaney also said he’s been consulting with former Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, who also supported some version of a state-based exchange while in office, about implementing a state-based program.
Currently, 21 states plus the District of Columbia have state-based exchanges, though three still operate from the federal platform. Should he follow through and sue the federal government, Chaney said he would use outside counsel and several other states told him they would join the lawsuit.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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