by Geoff Pender, Mississippi Today
April 7, 2025

Infighting between Mississippi’s Republican House and Senate legislative leaders reached DEFCON 4 as the 2025 legislative session sputtered to a close last week.

Lawmakers gaveled out unable to set a $7 billion state budget — their main job — or to even agree to negotiate. Gov. Tate Reeves will force them back into session sometime before the end of the fiscal year June 30. At a press conference last week, the governor assured he would do so but did not give a timetable, other than saying he plans to give lawmakers some time to cool off.

The crowning achievement of the 2025 session was passage of a tax overhaul bill a majority of legislators accidentally voted for because of errors in its math. House leaders and the governor nevertheless celebrated passage of the measure, which will phase out the state individual income tax over about 14 years, more quickly trim the sales tax on some groceries to 5% raise the tax on gasoline by 9 cents a gallon, then have automatic gas tax increases thereafter based on the cost of road construction.

The error in the Senate bill accidentally removed safeguards that chamber’s leadership wanted to ensure the income tax would be phased out only if the state sees robust economic growth and controls spending.

The rope-a-dope the House used with the Senate errors to pass the measure also stripped a safeguard House leaders had wanted: a 1.5 cents on the dollar increase in the state’s sales tax, which would have brought it to 8.5%. House leaders said such an increase was needed to offset cutting more than $2 billion from the state’s $7 billion general fund revenue by eliminating the income tax, and to ensure local governments would be kept whole.

Reeves was nonplussed about the flaws in the bill he signed into law (at one point denying there were errors in it) and called it “One big, beautiful bill,” borrowing a phrase from President Donald Trump.

Quote of the Week

“Quite frankly, I think it’s chicken shit what they did.” — Gov. Tate Reeves, at a press conference last week when asked his thoughts about the Senate rejecting his nomination of Cory Custer, Reeves’ deputy chief of staff, to serve as four-year term on the board of Mississippi Public Broadcasting.

Full Legislative Coverage

What happened (or didn’t) in the rancorous 2025 Mississippi Legislative session?

Mississippi Today’s political team unpacks the just ended — for now — legislative session, that crashed at the end with GOP lawmakers unable to pass a budget after much infighting among Republican leaders. The crowning achievement of the session, a tax overhaul bill, was passed by accident and full of major errors and omissions. Listen to the podcast.

Gov. Tate Reeves, legislative leaders tout tax cut, but for some, it could be a tax increase

Many of those retirees who do not pay an income tax under state law and other Mississippians as well will face a tax increase under this newly passed legislation touted by Reeves and others. Read the column.

Trump administration slashes education funding. Mississippi leaders and schools panic

Mississippi schools and the state education system are set to lose over $137 million in federal funds after the U.S. Department of Education halted access to pandemic-era grant money, state leaders said this week. Read the story.

Gov. Tate Reeves says he’ll call Mississippi lawmakers back in special session after they failed to set budget

Gov. Tate Reeves on Thursday said he will call lawmakers into a special session to adopt a budget before state agencies run out of money later in the summer and hinted he might force legislators to consider other measures.  Read the story.

GOP-controlled Senate rejects governor’s pick for public broadcasting board. Reeves calls it ‘chicken s–t’

The Senate on Wednesday roundly rejected the nomination of Cory Custer, Reeves’ deputy chief of staff, to serve a four-year term on the board of directors of Mississippi Public Broadcasting, the statewide public radio and television network. Reeves reacted to the Senate’s vote on Thursday, calling it “chicken shit.” Read the story.

Early voting proposal killed on last day of Mississippi legislative session

Mississippi will remain one of only three states without no-excuse early voting or no-excuse absentee voting.  Read the story.

Mississippi Legislature ends 2025 session without setting a budget over GOP infighting 

The House on Wednesday voted to end what had become a futile legislative session without passing a budget to fund state government, for the first time in 16 years. The Senate is expected to do the same on Thursday.  Read the story.

Mississippi Legislature approves DEI ban after heated debate

Mississippi lawmakers have reached an agreement to ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs and a list of “divisive concepts” from public schools across the state education system, following the lead of numerous other Republican-controlled states and President Donald Trump’s administration.   Read the story.

Fear and loathing: Legislative session crashes with lawmakers unable to set a budget because of Republican infighting

Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and other Senate leaders on Saturday excoriated the Republican House leadership, after the House didn’t show up for what was supposed to be “conference weekend” to haggle out a $7 billion budget. Read the story.

‘We’ll go another year’ without relief: Pharmacy benefit manager reform likely dead

Hotly contested legislation that aimed to increase the transparency and regulation of pharmacy benefit managers appeared dead in the water Tuesday after a lawmaker challenged the bill for a rule violation. Read the story.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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