Tuesday was the third big deadline in the Mississippi legislature for general, non-revenue, bills to be approved by committees from the opposite chamber.
Not a single bill that authorized a cigarette tax survived Tuesday’s deadline.
The next deadline is March 13, the last day for floor action on general bills originating from the other chamber.
Here are the some of the bills that survived and others that died:
Still alive
House Bill 1352 is sponsored by state Rep. Jason White (R-West) and is known as the Criminal Justice Reform Act. The bill would clear obstacles for the formerly incarcerated to find work, prevents driver’s license suspensions for controlled substance violations and unpaid legal fees and fines, and updates drug court laws to allow for additional types of what are known as problem solving courts.
The bill was passed by the Senate Judiciary A Committee Tuesday before the deadline and is headed to the Senate floor for a vote.
SB 2781, known as Mississippi Fresh Start Act, is sponsored by state Sen. John Polk (R-Hattiesburg). This bill would eliminate the practice of “good character” or “moral turpitude” clauses from occupational licensing regulations, which prohibit ex-offenders from receiving an occupational license and starting a new post-incarceration career.
The bill was amended with a strike-all that made it identical to the original House bill. It was then approved by the House Judiciary A Committee.
HB 1268 would clarify state law regarding constitutional challenges to local ordinances. With local circuit courts acting as both the appellate body for appeals on specific decisions (such as bid disputes) and the court of original jurisdiction, there’s been confusion among judges regarding the law that governs challenges of local decisions, which are required within 10 days.
City and county attorneys have used this 10-day requirement on decisions to get new constitutional challenges — which are new lawsuits and not appeals of decisions — thrown out of circuit courts. This law would add language that would prevent application of the 10-day requirement to constitutional challenges.
The bill was sponsored by state Rep. Dana Criswell (R-Southaven). It was passed out of the Senate Judiciary A Committee Tuesday.
SB 2901, known as the Landowner Protection Act, would exempt property owners and their employees from civil liability if a third party injures someone else on their property.
The bill is sponsored by state Sen. Josh Harkins (R-Flowood) and the amended bill been sent back to the Senate for concurrence. If the Senate doesn’t concur with the changes by the House, the two sides will have to settle their differences with the bill in a conference committee.
HB 702 would allow cottage food operators to increase their maximum sales to $35,000 and advertise their products on the web. The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Casey Eure (R-Saucier), passed the House by a 117-0 margin. It’s been passed out of the Public Health and Welfare Committee in the Senate.
SB 2603 would reauthorize motion picture and television production incentives for out-of-state firms that expired in 2017. Unlike the previous incentives, both bills would cap them at $10 million.
The bill sponsored by state Sen. Joey Fillingane (R-Sumrall) and been passed out of the House Ways and Means Committee. It’s already on the House calendar and will likely get a floor vote this week.
HB 1612 would authorize municipalities to create special improvement assessment districts that would be authorized to levy up to 6 mills of property tax (the amount per $1,000 of assessed value of the property) to fund parks, sidewalks, streets, planting, lighting, fountains, security enhancements and even private security services. The tax would require the approval of 60 percent of property owners in the district.
The bill is sponsored by state Rep. Mark Baker (R-Brandon) and passed the House 93-22 Thursday after failing to get a two-thirds majority on its first pass on the floor. It’s been referred to the Senate Finance Committee.
The deadline for floor action on appropriations and revenue bills from the other chamber is March 19.
HB 1204 would allow a municipality or county to execute the winning bid in a sealed bidding process if a judge hasn’t ruled on a protection request for bids within 90 days. The bill is sponsored by state Rep. Jerry Turner (R-Baldwyn) and was passed out of the Senate Accountability, Efficiency, Transparency Committee.
More dead than the Macarena
SB 2675 would’ve reauthorized the Education Scholarship Account program until 2024 and was sponsored by state Sen. Gray Tollison (R-Oxford). The original bill that authorized the ESA program has a repealer that will end the program if not reauthorized on July 1, 2020.
The bill was allowed to die on the calendar by the House Education Committee.
HB 623 would’ve exempted school districts with A and B accountability ratings from the Mississippi Department of Education from certain mandates, including grade reporting and annual auditing of the district’s official discipline plan and code of student conduct.
The bill was killed by the Senate Education Committee before making it to the floor for a vote.
HB 98 would prohibit the use of fishing nets for the taking of finfish or speckled trout within a half mile of the shoreline of Cat Island in the Mississippi Sound. It was allowed to die by the Senate Ports and Marine Resources Committee.
HB 1499 would’ve increased the excise tax on non-cigarette tobacco products such as cigars and chewing tobacco from 15 percent to 22.5 percent, while HB 1500 would’ve raised the per-pack cigarette tax rate from 68 cents to $1.18. Both were sponsored by state Rep. Bob Evans (D-Monticello). It died in committee.
SB 2665 would’ve increased the per-pack tax on cigarettes to $2.18 and was sponsored by state Sen. Willie Simmons (D-Cleveland). It died in committee.
HB 1573 was sponsored by state Rep. Jeff Smith (R-Columbus) and would’ve increased the tax on a pack of cigarettes to $1.68. It also didn’t make it out of committee.
SB 2563 was authored by state Sen. Brice Wiggins (R-Pascagoula) and would’ve hiked the per-pack levy to $2.18. It died in committee.
HB 60 was sponsored by state Rep. Earl Banks (D-Jackson) and would’ve authorized $2 million in bond funds for the Jackson Zoo for capital improvements.
HB 67 was sponsored by state Rep. Ashley Henley (R-Southaven) and would’ve eliminated the state sales tax on food and increased the diversion of sales tax revenue to municipalities from 18.5 to 20 percent.
Mississippi lost 700 jobs over the previous month while the unemployment rate in January remained unchanged for the eighth consecutive month at 4.7 percent.
According to the Mississippi Department of Employment Security, this represents the lowest rate since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began calculating state unemployment data in 1976. But Mississippi still has among the highest unemployment rates in the country. The national unemployment rate is 4.0, up slightly from 3.9 percent in December.
But these numbers vary greatly depending on what part of the state you are in.
In the Jackson metro area, Rankin (3.7 percent) and Madison (3.9 percent) counties posted unemployment rates lower than the national average. Hinds county, however, had a rate of 4.8 percent.
In the Pine Belt, Lamar county had an unemployment rate of 3.9 percent. Forrest county, though, was higher at 4.7 percent.
Desoto county had an unemployment rate of 4.1 percent, while Lafayette county had a rate of 4.3 percent. Union, Pontotoc, and Lee counties boated unemployment rates of 3.9 percent, 4.1 percent, and 4.1 percent, respectively.
But on the Coast, unemployment rates were above state and national averages. Harrison county had the lowest rate at 4.8 percent, while it was 5.8 percent in Hancock county and 6 percent in Jackson county. The Gulfport-Biloxi-Pascagoula MSA had an unemployment rate of 5.4 percent, about a point higher than the Hattiesburg MSA (4.5 percent) and the Jackson MSA (4.4 percent).
The Delta and Southwest Mississippi continue to post the highest unemployment rates in the state. This includes 14.1 percent in Jefferson county, 12.7 percent in Issaquena county, 10.2 percent in Humphreys county, and 10 percent in Holmes and Wilkinson counties.
Among cities, Moss Point had the highest unemployment rate at 7.7 percent, followed by 7.1 percent in Greenville, and 6.4 percent in Vicksburg. On the other end of the spectrum, Madison had an unemployment rate of 3.3 percent, while both Clinton and Southaven posted unemployment rates of 3.6 percent.
A bill in the Mississippi legislature could give a homeowner’s association the right to levy property taxes on the residents that live there.
House Bill 1612 would authorize municipalities to create special improvement assessment districts in areas administered by home owner associations.
These 501(c)(3) organizations would be authorized to levy up to 6 mills of property tax (the amount per $1,000 of assessed value of the property) to fund parks, sidewalks, streets, landscaping, lighting, fountains, security enhancements such as gates and cameras, and even the hiring of private security services.
In Mississippi, ad valorem tax is assessed at 10 percent of the value of real property.
For example, on a house with an assessed value of $250,000 in the city of Jackson, six mills of additional tax could add up to an additional $145.50 annually in property tax.
The HOA that seeks taxing authority would have to hold a public hearing with two weeks’ notice that would be advertised in a newspaper that circulates in the area.
The tax would require a referendum of the affected property owners and would require 60 percent approval by them before the district could be authorized.
The governing authority of the municipality where the district is located could dissolve it via a resolution if all activities for which the district was created were complete and no debts were outstanding in connection with the improvements.
The bill is sponsored by state Rep. Mark Baker (R-Brandon) and passed the House 93-22 on February 28 after failing to get a two-thirds majority on its first pass on the floor.
It hasn’t yet been referred to a Senate committee, but as a revenue bill, it is on a later calendar than a general bill. The deadline for floor action on appropriations and revenue bills passed out of the other chamber is March 19.
A similar bill that would only apply to HOAs in the Jackson city limits is active in the House and is similar to bills that have been killed in each of the last four legislative sessions. State Rep. Credell Calhoun (D-Jackson) is the sponsor of HB 1157, which is a local and private bill.
The old law that authorized the creation of these special improvement districts was repealed in 2001.
Criminal justice reform and another bill that would bring clarification to constitutional questions raised regarding actions by cities and counties passed Tuesday out of the Senate Judiciary A Committee.
Tuesday was the deadline for general bills passed by the other chamber to be reported on by committees.
House Bill 1352— also known as the Criminal Justice Reform Act — passed out of the committee with considerable discussion about possible impacts to the state highway funding and other issues.
Mississippi Department of Transportation Executive Director Melinda McGrath and her legal team told the committee that two components of the reform package could put the state in jeopardy of being in non-compliance with federal law. One of those involves the suspension of driver’s licenses for controlled substance violations that were non-moving ones. Another was the expunging of controlled substance violations after a few years in order to allow ex-offenders to obtain commercial driver’s licenses.
McGrath said doing so would put the state at risk for losing millions in federal funding.
Federal law requires at least a six month suspension for any controlled substance violation and changing these requirements could cost the state $36.5 million a year in highway funds for regular driver’s licenses. The part in the bill about CDLs could result in a $14 million funding decrease the first year and $28 million each succeeding year.
State Sen. David Parker (R-Olive Branch) had problems with the legislation over whether it would create loopholes for habitual offenders. He gave the example of an eight-time DUI offender as someone who could use some of the bill’s language as a way to escape prison time. Parker was the lone no vote against the bill.
The Criminal Justice Reform Act is sponsored by state Rep. Jason White (R-West) and would clear obstacles for the formerly incarcerated to find work, prevents driver’s license suspensions for not only non-moving controlled substance violations, but also unpaid legal fees and fines.
The bill would also update drug court laws to allow for additional types of what are known as problem solving courts.
HB 1352 is now headed to the full Senate for a vote. If the bill is amended in the Senate before passage, the differences will have to be settled between the House and Senate in a conference committee.
One bill that didn’t receive a lot of controversy was HB 1268, which would clarify state law regarding constitutional challenges to local ordinances. The bill passed the committee without a single vote against.
With local circuit courts acting as both the appellate body for appeals on specific decisions (such as bid disputes) and the court of original jurisdiction, there’s been a lot of confusion among judges regarding the law that governs challenges of local decisions, which are required within 10 days.
For years, city and county attorneys have used this 10-day requirement on decisions to get new constitutional challenges — which are new lawsuits and not appeals — thrown out of circuit courts.
This law would add language that would prevent application of the 10-day requirement to constitutional challenges, which are new lawsuits and not challenges to decisions.
March 13 is the next deadline for floor action on general bills that originated in the other chamber.
Among neighboring states, Mississippi is the only one that has not passed a resolution to call for a Convention of the States under Article V of the U.S. Constitution. That’s something organizers from the Convention of the States organization seek to change.
Senate Concurrent Resolution 596, if passed, would make Mississippi the 14th state legislature to pass a resolution asking for an Article V Convention of the States.
Article V gives state legislatures the power to call a convention to propose amendments to the Constitution. It takes 34 states to call the convention and 38 to ratify any proposed amendment.
Lt. Col. Allen West (ret.) paid a visit to the state capitol as part of the conservative grassroots group Convention of States Action last week to encourage legislators to approve the resolution.
“The brilliance and prescience of our founding fathers, they knew if they didn’t have those righteous men and women serving in the federal government that the balance would get out of skew,” West said. “They made sure that those powers that aren’t enumerated to the federal government are retained by the states and by the people. That’s why they put Article V in there.”
The amendments brought in this convention would place fiscal restraints on Congress and mandate term limits for both representatives and senators. Any amendments passed in such a convention would require at least approval of two thirds of the nation’s state legislatures to become law.
The nation has more than $22 trillion in debt and another $122 trillion in unfunded liabilities for Medicaid and other entitlements. Mark Meckler, president of Convention of States Action, says that a constitutional amendment that forces fiscal responsibility on the federal government is needed to address this issue.
“Nobody’s even talking about debt and deficits and that is eventually going to crush our country,” said Mark Meckler. “We can impose a balanced budget amendment on the federal government and force them to live like your state and other states that live within their means.
He also said that the federal government needs to utilize generally-accepted accounting practices.
“I call it the unicorn and rainbow system. It is fantasy and you’d go to jail if you accounted that way,” Meckler said. “We could put in tax caps, spending caps, all kinds of things you can do to rein them in.”
Meckler said that criticism of a possible runaway convention was unfounded since only those specific amendments that would limit the power of the federal government would be addressed.
The states that have approved similar Article V resolutions include: Georgia, Florida, Alaska, Alabama, Tennessee, Indiana, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Texas, Missouri, North Dakota, Arizona and Arkansas.
Mississippi lawmakers have tried to pass a similar resolution in previous years.
A similar resolution passed the House 76-42 last year and it died in the Senate without making it out of committee.
Three resolutions that would have called for an Article V convention died in the 2017 session and three more perished in the 2016 session as well.
President Donald Trump announced over the weekend that he will soon be signing an executive order requiring colleges and universities to support free speech in exchange for federal funding.
Trump made the announcement to an audience of conservative activists at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference gathering outside of Washington, D.C.
“We reject oppressive speech codes, censorship, political correctness, and every other attempt by the hard left to stop people from challenging ridiculous and dangerous ideas. These ideas are dangerous,” Trump said. “Instead, we believe in free speech. Including online and including on campus.”
Campus free speech have been born out of recent examples of speakers being disinvited because of campus protests, the creation of small “free speech zones,” and/ or restrictive speech codes.
Legislation has been moving at the state level for several years, and to date 10 states have adopted some form of campus free speech protections. This includes two of Mississippi’s neighbors, Louisiana and Tennessee.
Similar legislation was introduced in both the House and the Senate, but both of those bills died early in the session without a vote.
Still, such legislation is widely popular in Mississippi. According to new polling from Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy, 83 percent of Mississippi voters support a law that “would protect speech for all college students, even if others disagree with their point of view.”
This law has broad public support in every corner of the state. Seventy-eight percent of Democrats, 88 percent of Republicans, and 80 percent of independents support the law.
The United States Senate blocked the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act on Monday. All but three Senate Democrats voted against the measure, preventing its passage with 53 in favor and 44 opposed. The Act needed 60 votes to proceed.
The bill would have punished doctors who failed to provide medical care to infants accidently born alive in failed abortion attempts. Late term abortions are committed in at least 7 states across America. Recently, New York became one of the most radical pro-abortion states in the US.
Upon learning of this legislation, many wonder what is so controversial about protecting the lives of babies born alive in a medical setting.
Senate Democrats and the abortion lobby contend that the Act is simply a ploy to shame women seeking third trimester abortions. President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Leana Wen, said in her statement, “This legislation is based on lies and a misinformation campaign, aimed at shaming women and criminalizing doctors for a practice that doesn’t exist in medicine or reality.”
For people like Melissa Ohden and Gianna Jessen, surviving failed abortion attempts is a reality. In Melissa’s case, she was left to die by medical staff and only spared because of the actions of kind NICU nurses. Recently, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam advocated for babies accidently born alive to be “kept comfortable” while they await their death. To be clear, babies left to die after failed abortions die of starvation, cold body temperatures, and oxygen deprivation.
Doctors who violate the Hippocratic Oath by not caring for born alive babies must be held accountable. As the left argues that infanticide is already illegal, they seem to be confusing themselves on whether or not leaving babies to die is infanticide or not. Bill author Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) argues that we need to make the penalty for this circumstance that doesoccur in reality abundantly clear for the medical community.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) called the proposed legislation “clearly anti-doctor, anti-woman and anti-family.” If outlining the punishment for neglecting infants born alive is anti-doctor, anti-woman, and anti-family, America should buckle its bootstraps in preparation for more horrific and backwards abortion legislation.
The truth is, many on the left do not value any unwanted human being if it can be called reproductive rights and gleaned for political points. Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) exposes their actual thought process for blocking the act: “…Women, in consultation with their families and doctors, are in the best position to determine their best course of care.” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D- NH) claimed the legislation “would interfere with the doctor–patient relationship and impose new obstacles to a woman’s constitutionally protected right to make her own decisions about her reproductive health.”
Their statements have pointed out that they actually do approve of post-birth infanticide if it is “neatly” decided between a woman and her doctor.
Dressing up infanticide with political buzzwords and phrases doesn’t change what it is—a doctor’s approval and aid in facilitating the death of a newborn child.
Hate is back in style but that’s no thanks to those who extol it. Those making their living from it are the ones truly prospering.
The conservative viewpoint on hate is that it is morally wrong to endorse any ideology that seeks to deprive an individual of his or her God-given right to life and liberty. And just as this extends to Neo-Nazis, it also extends to those who advocate for the deprivation of rights for anyone who presents ideas which oppose their own.
Liberals, progressive academics, and much of the mainstream media see this quite differently. When you understand how much of their wealth, power, and influence comes from a monopoly on outrage, it should come as no surprise.
American liberalism now abides by three principles. The first, if you do not demand groups which oppose progressivism be dismantled by the state or vigilantes granted special privilege by the state, you are complicit. Next, if you do not see people who hate as enemies of the state, only to be dispelled by force either provided by the state or vigilantes granted special privilege by the state, you are an enabler. Finally, if you do not participate in the crowdsourcing of outrage culture, which provides the foundation of the Hatred Industrial Complex, you are racist/homophobic/xenophobic/sexist and bigoted. Because the list of names a liberty-minded conservative can be called grows daily, I’m sure I missed a few.
Any violation of these three principles can lead you to be named as part of the irredeemable class, ineligible to work or live in this society. And this is true regardless of your ideology. After decades of educating academics who go on to train the permanent class of bureaucrats in government, progressives have finally gotten what they have longed for. No, not a world without hate, but a cultural super weapon which can be deployed to destroy anyone who challenges their power.
Progressive ideology cannot exist in a world based on the equality granted through objective judgements of character. It can only exist in a world where the permanent government class and the academics have the power to force their ideological opponents into submission. On the rare occasion the super weapon fails, progressives can quietly encourage people to stage inauthentic crimes of a bigoted nature to force through policies by crowdsourcing online outrage or through the vast network granted to them by political professionals and their allies in much of the national media.
The list of manufactured outrage from social stagecraft is long and distinguished. From actor Jussie Smollett’s recently staged homophobic attack to Jackie Coakley’s erroneous report that a University of Virginia chapter of Phi Kappa Psi engaged in her gang rape during initiation rites to Nick Sandamann’s media crucifixion for smiling, and to Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s attempted show trail, the left’s Kabuki theatre game is strong.
But, do you remember the 2014 racist incident at Oberlin College in which the faculty were fully aware the events were staged by students so that they could force through diversity programs? What about the arson of an African American church defaced with pro-Trump graffiti in Greenville, which turned out to have been perpetrated by one of the members? Don’t forget about the Episcopal church in Indiana, which was defaced in a false flag attempt. These serve as a few of the hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of examples of fake stories distributed by mainstream media to invoke outrage. In most cases, the invalidated stories were later quietly disregarded because the truth does not matter to people who seek to control our opinions and viewpoints.
Each of these “false flag” incidents under the guise of defeating hate, was carried out as an effort to make liberty-minded conservatives in America guilty by association.
The people in the Hatred Industrial Complex, whether members of mainstream media, academic progressives, or government careerist, despise the things you and I hold dear. They’re disgusted that you love your country or your spouse. They resent your respect for foundational ideas like natural rights and a constitution written to preserve those principals. They hate that you and I believe in God and have the temerity to associate with others who value religious liberty. The people in the HIC believe they know best and they aren’t interested in hearing your dissent, especially if it emanates from a rural town or a red state. Unless you agree that America is a fundamentally unjust place with only victims and victimizers, we must spend trillions to save the planet from climate catastrophe, and capitalism is the root of all evil, you’re seen as an obstacle to progressive utopia. What exactly does this utopia look like? I’m not sure but I know it’s a place where the HIC can keep lining their pockets and leveraging their power.
Without a concerted effort by every liberty-minded conservative to limit the Hatred Industrial Complex, those who truly are the legitimate victims of crimes motivated by bias will no longer have the capacity to pursue justice. The very foundation of equality and justice under the law will be eroded and eventually destroyed. If we don’t put up a fight for the real American values, truth will be lost to the theater of the outrageous.
If outrage soon becomes the policy currency, most of us are going to wind up being flat broke.