Blog - Page 85 of 191 - Mississippi Center for Public Policy

The Mississippi Senate voted Tuesday to create a new state agency to promote tourism.

Senate Bill 2838, authored by Sen. John Polk (R-Hattiesburg), would create a Department of Tourism and remove responsibility for the tourism promotion from the existing Mississippi Development Authority.

The bill would create a new agency, with a seven-member governing board with four members appointed by the governor and three by the lieutenant governor. The salary of the executive director appointed by the board would be set by the board.

It would also create a grant program for matching funds to finance, promote, and advertise local tourist attractions.

The bill was assigned by Senate leadership to the Senate Accountability, Efficiency and Transparency Committee, which is chaired by Polk. It bypassed the Tourism Committee chaired by Sen. Lydia Chassaniol (R-Winona) and she was one of six no votes when it passed the Senate.

The bill is now in the hands of the House, where it has yet to receive a committee assignment.

SB 2838 also has some unrelated components that include one dealing with providing sales tax revenue to the Capitol Complex Improvement District in Jackson and another would deal with a tax incremental financing of a $10 million redevelopment project on the coast in Jackson County.

The Mississippi Development Authority has asked for more than $6 million for tourism promotion in its budget request for fiscal 2021.

That isn’t all taxpayers are doing for tourism promotion.

Last year, then-Gov. Phil Bryant signed into law SB 2193, which created a tourism advisory board and redirected three percent of the state’s sales tax revenues from hotels and restaurants into a special fund to help with tourism promotion.

Taxpayer-funded tourism promotion doesn’t always pay off. According to a 2016 study by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan, researchers found only a small impact nationwide from taxpayer funded tourism promotion on the hotel industry, no impact on recreation and amusements, and a miniscule one on arts and entertainment.

This was in marked contrast to the wildly optimistic numbers released by Michigan state officials on how taxpayer spending impacted tourism in the state.

They used data from 48 states over a 39-year period.

With a deadline looming to get legislation out of the originating chamber, both houses of the Mississippi legislature passed a raft of legislation and let others die.

Among the good bills that survived the deadline day included some regulatory and licensing reform, a bill that would stop the practice of abortions carried out because of a child’s race, sex, disability, or genetic makeup, and another that would help protect free speech on the campuses of the state’s universities and community colleges.

Unfortunately, a bill that would’ve allowed direct shipment of wine died in the Senate, while a controversial bill that deals with campus sexual assault passed in the House. Also, the Senate passed a resolution that supporters of the medical marijuana ballot initiative say is designed to kill the initiative.

Here are some of the bills and their fates on deadline:

The Good

House Bill 1422 would create a pilot program to reduce state regulations at four agencies: Mississippi Departments of Health, Transportation, Agriculture and Commerce, and Information Technology Services. It passed on a largely party-line vote.

Senate Bill 2790 and HB 1104 would give the Occupational Licensing Review Commission the ability to do a review of an existing regulation to determine whether it increases economic opportunities for citizens by promoting competition and uses the least restrictive regulation to protect consumers. Right now, the OLRC, which is comprised of the governor, attorney general and secretary of state, is limited to review of only new regulations.

SB 2351 is a bill that requires the state-chartered Mississippi High School Activities Association — which governs public school athletics and activities in the state — to comply with the state’s Open Meetings Act. Sen. Angela Hill (R-Picayune), along with Sens. Chris McDaniel (R-Ellisville) and Melanie Sojourner (R-Natchez) attached an amendment that would prohibit public school districts from having to join and pay membership dues to the MHSAA or any other sanctioning body that allowed biological males to compete against biological females in sports. The bill was passed on a party-line vote, but held on a motion to reconsider, which was cleared on Friday.

HB 1295, also known as The Life Equality Act, would prohibit abortion for the reasons of race, sex or genetic abnormality except in the case of a medical emergency. Physicians would also have to report the reason for an abortion. It passed the House and is now in the hands of the Senate.

HB 1200, known as the Forming Open and Robust University Minds (FORUM) Act, would permit all forms of peaceful assembly, protests, speeches, guest speakers, distribution of literature, carrying signs, and circulating petitions on campuses of the state’s universities and community colleges. It passed in the House despite large-scale resistance from the state’s universities on a largely party-line vote.

HB 1398 is a civil asset forfeiture bill that would end a practice where law enforcement or prosecutors could request a property owner to waive their rights to their property, often in exchange for charges to be dropped. The new language in the bill will also change the burden of proof for forfeiture to clear and convincing evidence.

HB 1510 would require the state to recognize an occupational license from another state for military families who move to Mississippi. It passed the House unanimously.

HB 4 would increase the number of package store permits one could own under present law from one to three. It is now in the hands of the Senate after a very narrow passage in the House.

SB 2552 would remove the prohibition on the amount of beer that can be sold directly to consumers at craft breweries. Right now, brewers are limited to selling either 10 percent of the beer produced there or 1,500 barrels, whichever is the lesser amount and this bill would eliminate this provision. The Senate approved the bill and sent it to the House.

SB 2725 and HB 1208, both known as the Hemp Cultivation Act, would allow the cultivation, processing, transportation and handling of hemp under strict guidelines. The Senate version passed with a 35-16 margin and is now in the hands of the House, which passed its version by an overwhelming 104-10 margin.

The Bad

SB 2857 builds upon the existing direct care model by expanding it to more providers. It would also ensure that paying cash for health care services as an insurance product wouldn’t be regulated by the state Department of Insurance. It died without a vote on deadline.

HB 989 would make several changes to the way school districts report their financial information to the Mississippi Department of Education and prohibit some districts from automatically increasing taxes. The House didn’t vote on the bill before the deadline.

The Ugly

The Senate approved House Concurrent Resolution 39, which its defenders say would create a much needed tightly regulated medical marijuana program. The vote means it will appear on the ballot alongside Initiative 65, which would create a more free market-oriented medical marijuana program. HCR 39 detractors say putting an alternative on the ballot is designed to kill the original initiative, which was approved by more than 230,000 voters.

HB 1212 would increase the license requirements for real estate brokers from 12 months to 36 months. A similar bill was adopted by the legislature in 2018, only to be vetoed by then-Gov. Phil Bryant. As Bryant said, this is an overburdensome barrier to market entry that does not use the least restrictive means necessary, as state law requires.

HB 158, the Sexual Assault Response for College Students Act, passed the House with only four nay votes. Like the other iterations of the bill, it has some due process problems for the accused in campus sexual assault cases that need to be addressed and would codify into state law some of the federal regulations from a superseded Obama administration “Dear Colleague” guidance letter. The Trump administration has issued different guidance on this issue that preserves the rights of the accused.

SB 2847 would extend the deadline to 2024 for the Mississippi Development Authority to approve projects under the Tourism Project Incentive Program, which allows a portion of the sales tax collected at a tourism attraction to be rebated to the developer to cover construction costs. It passed unanimously in the Senate.

The proposed collective bargaining agreement is finally in the hands of some 2,000 players, who have until Saturday at 11:59 pm ET to vote on a deal that would govern the NFL and ensure labor peace until March of 2031.

The big issues in the proposed agreement are a 17^th game, new playoff expansion and a minimum wage increase. NFL owners have already approved the terms for the new 10-year collective bargaining agreement, but the players appear to be unsure.

People with knowledge of the negotiations told CNBC one of the holdups centered on the new 17-game format, which had capped payment at $250,000 per player. After a meeting at the 2020 NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis last week, owners agreed to drop the cap, leading to the NFLPA’s board to vote 17-14-1 to send to union members.

Under the new terms, players would receive 47% of league revenue, which The Wall Street Journal reported amounted to roughly $16 billion over the last year. The player share increases to 48% in 2021, and 48.5% if a 17th regular season game is added.

DeMaurice Smith had only been on the job for two years at the time of the current CBA’s implementation. Before his election to sports labor’s most high-profile job, and with virtually no experience in sports labor law, many opined that the leader of the NFLPA was taken advantage of by the league’s billionaire owners, who negotiated to receive 53% of qualified revenue for a decade. With opinions about this CBA so divided, one more “illegal procedure” call and Smith could see the end of his tenure as NFLPA director.

Some key data confirms what many insiders understood. The NFL’s rich got richer and the NFL’s working man did not.

Between 2000 and 2011, the average NFL team value increased by 7.7% CAGR ($423 million - $1.036 billion).

Since the owner-friendly CBA deal in 2012, the average NFL franchise has increased by 13.5% CAGR ($1.036 billion - $2.86 billion).

Between 2000 and 2011, the average NFL salary rose from $1.16 million to $1.9 million, for a CAGR of 4.2%.

By 2019, the average NFL salary stood at $2.7 million, a 4.5% CAGR, but a far cry from the owners’ 13.5% compounded annual growth rate for valuation.

You can read more about NFL team valuations here.

Even more illustrative of how bad this deal was for the players, the mean NFL salary, a more relevant statistic to the rank and file of the league, saw an increase from 2012-2019 of just 1.4%, not even keeping up with CPI or inflation (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics).

A lot of players, reps, and pundits are asking, “hey, what’s the rush” to sign a new 10-year deal a full season before the old deal expires?” Clearly, if history is any indication, we know why the owners can’t wait for the ink to dry on this CBA. With an average NFL career now lasting just 3.3 years, caveat emptor is the appropriate guidance before putting pen to paper.

This appeared in Forbes on March 13, 2020.

The Senate defeated a bill that would have authorized the direct shipment of wine last night. And the vote wasn’t even close.

Senate Bill 2534, authored by Sen. Walter Michel (R-Ridgeland) and carried by Sen. Josh Harkins (R-Flowood) on the floor, would have made Mississippi the 44th state in the country to allow consumers to purchase wine and have it shipped directly to their house. Currently in Mississippi, a control state, you are limited to what the state has in stock, limiting your freedom to choose the wine you prefer. If ABC doesn't have it available, you don't have the option.

On deadline day, the bill came to the floor and was defeated 32-13. Thirteen Republicans voted for the bill, and two others that would have supported the bill paired their votes with opponents. Every other Republican voted no, as did the entire Democratic caucus.

This is the latest defeat this session, though we don’t usually see floor votes showcasing the opposition from legislators. Earlier this session, bills to allow wine in grocery stores died in committee without a vote considered in either chamber.

House Bill 981, sponsored by Rep. Brent Powell (R-Flowood), and Senate Bill 2531, sponsored by Michel, would have allowed wine to be sold in grocery stores, while providing up to six permits. You are currently limited to one permit. Wine sales in grocery stores are legal in 39 states, including Alabama, Louisiana, and Tennessee. But it will remain illegal in Mississippi, at least in 2020.

Some new establishments, including Costco in Ridgeland, Whole Foods in Jackson, and Sam’s Club in Madison, have separate establishments that sell alcohol – essentially their own liquor store attached to their main store, but not a place you can access without leaving the main grocery store. Most grocery stores can’t or won’t take on what is an unnecessary burden.

The opposition to alcohol freedom is very loud, and obviously influential with legislators.

And they don’t even hide what they are trying to do. It is liquor stores who don’t want competition, and everyone in Jackson knows that. But it shouldn’t be the job of the legislature to pick winners and losers. Coupled with the Department of Revenue who says we can’t handle the capacity of the wine needed to stock Kroger and Walmart (maybe we should remove the state from the alcohol distribution business), you have a pretty dangerous one-two punch that has outgunned citizens who overwhelmingly favor these ideas.

It is abundantly clear that most Mississippians who don’t have a vested interest in the status quo want change. They are tired of having the government make life decisions for them and would prefer that they have the ability to decide if, when, and where they purchase wine, and how it is delivered.

For a party that prides itself on free markets and competition, Republicans are very scared of anything resembling a free market for alcohol.

The Mississippi House of Representatives adopted a bill today to protect the rights of college students to speak freely about the causes and issues they hold dear. The bill codifies existing federal case law for the state of Mississippi to avoid expensive litigation for public universities and colleges.

“The last place on earth we should expect to see free speech go unprotected is on a college campus,” said Jon Pritchett, President and CEO of Mississippi Center for Public Policy (MCPP). “Students and administrators need to tolerate speech with which they may disagree. And while this is not a left or right issue, it is important to thank Speaker Philip Gunn and the House for their leadership and action on this important issue.”

Eighty-three percent of Mississippi voters support legislation 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.

HB 1200 does not protect speech that would incite violence or harassment or would objectively disrupt a campus event or activity. It only applies to the campus community and allows universities to set reasonable limits to speech and peaceful protests.

“Under House Bill 1200, schools would not be able to create specific ‘free speech zones’ and they would have to use ‘clear, published, content-and viewpoint-neutral criteria’ in restricting student speech and gatherings,” explained Dr. Jameson Taylor, Vice President for Policy with MCPP. These criteria are set forth in U.S. Supreme Court decisions like Healy v. James (1972) andTinker v. Des Moines (1969) and, more recently in the lower courts, Barnes v. Zaccari (2015) andKoala v. Khosla (2019).”

According to a recent audit by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, there is an “urgent” need to address unconstitutional restrictions on campuses like at Ole Miss. The University of Mississippi “has set out unconstitutional rules for ‘Speaker’s Corners,’ ‘Organized Student Demonstrations,’ carrying props, and use of sidewalk chalk. It has, moreover, a Bias Incident Response Team, whose stated procedures will almost inevitably trigger a legal challenge.” Likewise, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), cautions that “the picture on the ground in Mississippi is not all rosy.” FIRE is currently suing Jones County Community College for violating the free speech rights of student Mike Brown.

Almost 20 states have passed campus free speech protections, including every state in the SEC except Georgia, Mississippi and South Carolina.

Full poll results can be found here. The poll was conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy.

Mississippi’s slow, but steady, progress toward reforming the state's civil asset forfeiture program continued this week in the House.

House Bill 1398, sponsored by Rep. Dana Criswell (R-Olive Branch), would end the practice where law enforcement or prosecutors could request a property owner to waive their rights to their property, often in exchange for charges to be dropped. The new language in the bill will also change the burden of proof for forfeiture to clear and convincing evidence.

Over the past five years, the state has begun to make small steps from a program that not too long ago had no transparency on what was happening to property rights in the state. Through task force recommendations, the state adopted a transparency website that brought light to what was being forfeited. Two years ago, the legislature let administrative forfeiture – which allows agents of the state to take property valued under $20,000 and forfeit it by merely obtaining a warrant and providing the individual with a notice – die.

Still, significant reforms remain harder to come by. The original language of HB 1398 would’ve put caps on what kind of property that state and local governments can acquire via civil asset forfeiture. That bill would have exempted property, currency totaling $500 or less, and a vehicle with a market value of $2,500 or less from civil asset forfeiture.

According to the most recent analysis of the civil asset forfeiture database by the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, of the 353 seizures in 2019, 118 of them of them had a total value of $2,500 or less.

There were 41 vehicles seized by law enforcement with an average value of $5,091 in 2019. Of those, 29 would’ve been below the cap set by Criswell’s bill and would not have been eligible for forfeiture.

Despite the narrative that civil asset forfeiture is a vital tool for busting big drug cartels, most seizures are small in size. Only three seizures were $60,000 or more in 2019 and 177 had a total value of $10,000 or less.

HB 1398 passed 107-10, with ten Republicans voting against it: Reps. William Andrews, Jim Beckett, Kevin Felsher, Jill Ford, Dale Goodin, Gene Newman, Brent Powell, Randy Rushing, Troy Smith, and Mark Tullos.

The Senate Constitution Committee passed out a legislative alternative to the medical marijuana ballot initiative Wednesday that cleared the House yesterday.

Earlier today, the motion to reconsider on House Concurrent Resolution 39 was tabled and it was transmitted to the Senate. During a short Senate recess this evening, the Constitution committee met, took up the resolution, and it passed in one minute without discussion.

HCR 39 — sponsored by Rep. Trey Lamar (R-Senatobia) — passed 72-49 Tuesday after several rounds of contentious debate on a largely party-line vote with most Republicans voting yes for the alternative.

On the floor, Lamar said his bill was about creating a better program that wasn’t an entryway to recreational marijuana.

“If we’re going to have a program, we need to have a proper program,” Lamar said on the floor.

The legislature has had plenty of time to act. Since 2010, there have been 11 bills that either would’ve created or were related to the creation of a medical marijuana program and none made it past the first committee deadline.

Rep. Joel Bomgar (R-Madison) is part of the Medical Marijuana 2020 steering committee and has authored several unsuccessful bills that would’ve created a medical marijuana pilot program. He said on the floor that the legislative alternative was intended to kill the initiative and that sponsors of HCR 39 were being disingenuous about its true purpose.

Initiative 65 would amend the state’s constitution to create a medical marijuana program in Mississippi and more than 220,000 statewide signed the petition to put it on the ballot. For ballot initiatives in Mississippi, the certified signature requirement is 86,185 total with at least 17,237 from each of the five congressional districts as they were in 2000.

The medical marijuana under Initiative 65 program would be administered by the state Department of Health, whose board opposes the ballot initiative. HCR 39 would create a much less expansive program, with the number of producers strictly limited. The smoking of marijuana would also be limited to those with terminal conditions.

Initiative 65 would keep the revenues generated by medical marijuana in the program to pay for the state Department of Health to implement and enforce the rules and regulations in the program.

Under Initiative 65, patients with debilitating conditions seeking to be part of the program would be required to get an examination by a physician and then be referred to a licensed and regulated treatment center. At these centers, either the patient or caregiver for a disabled or home-bound patient could buy limited quantities of marijuana or related products.

"The House showed (yesterday) that they couldn’t care less about the people who are suffering from debilitating medical conditions in our state and who could be helped with medical marijuana," Jamie Grantham, Mississippians for Compassionate Care Communications Director. "The battle now shifts to the Senate. We hope that Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann and the Senate will do the right thing and oppose this alternative amendment to give Mississippians a fair vote on medical marijuana this November.”

The Senate could take the alternative resolution up as early as tomorrow. If the resolution passes the Senate, it will appear on the bottom of the ballot in November alongside Initiative 65 since it doesn’t require a signature from Gov. Tate Reeves.

In Mississippi, it is legal to have an abortion because the preborn child’s race, sex, or disability is not preferred by the baby’s parents.

This has prompted Rep. Carolyn Crawford (R-Pass Christian) and Sen. Jenifer Branning (R-Philadelphia) to bring the Life Equality Act to Mississippi. This proposed law would prohibit abortions from taking place because of the preborn child’s race, sex, or disability.

We should not tolerate the terminal discrimination of preborn children because some extended families do not approve of interracial relationships, or because a parent prefers to have a son to a daughter. Still more common is the termination of those with disabilities, a tragedy that no one would attempt to justify outside of the womb.

A medical review looked at seven population-based studies and found that the average abortion rate after a Down Syndrome diagnosis was 67 percent. A comprehensive survey facilitated by the Charlotte Lozier Institute took opinions of people with Down Syndrome and their families and found the following:

99% of people with Down syndrome are happy with their lives
97% of people with Down syndrome like who they are
97% of brothers/sisters, ages 9-11, said they love their sibling

One only has to spend a brief moment with an individual who has Down Syndrome to witness the joy they bring into a room. Many individuals with Down Syndrome go on to live independently, attend university, marry, and maintain jobs.

However, even if these facts were not the case, individuals with Down Syndrome have an unalienable right to life. Down Syndrome and many other disabilities come as heartbreaking news to expectant mothers. Some disabilities display themselves so prominently in children that they are unable to walk, eat independently, or use the restroom alone. Some diagnoses in the womb are terminal or tragically involve the early death of babies and young children.

None of this should be minimized.

What do we, Mississippi, say of these lives?

It is unfathomable to those of us who have not faced an unforeseen diagnosis of a preborn child to know the emotions and financial strain these parents face. It is up to us, Mississippi, to step up, come alongside these parents, and support them. Over 40 privately funded pregnancy resource centers provide free, confidential resources and information for families facing a diagnosis. Local non-profits, churches, and local support groups offer emotional and financial support to families with children with disabilities. We certainly have room to improve and increase these services in Mississippi, but improving the world for families with disabilities requires respect for their lives, not the promotion of abortion.

For terminal cases when infants only live for a short time after birth or have a chance of passing away in the womb, perinatal hospice and palliative care programs are available to Mississippians. Care for the mother and preborn child is the ethical response to severe anomalies. Abortion does not resolve cases where a lethal fetal anomaly exists; it merely destroys the life of one of the patients. Patients and their families can and should be offered the ethical options of perinatal hospice or palliative care to support them in the same way we do families with an adult member for whom treatment has become futile. Even a brief life has meaning.

There are times diagnoses do not result in a worst case scenario. A woman in Flowood, Tina Oates, was pressured by doctors in Mississippi to abort her son, Coit, after she contracted Cytomegalovirus. In some cases, CMV passed through the placenta during pregnancy leads to disabilities in the child. Tina’s family went against persistent medical objections, sought treatment, and have a perfectly healthy little boy today.

Even in non-fatal cases, evidence suggests that as many as 95% of parents receiving a prenatal diagnosis of cystic fibrosis elect to abort the child. Madison resident Joseph Edge, MBA student at Millsaps and MSU Alum, has battled Cystic Fibrosis since birth. He has endured extended hospital stays and emotional and physical hurdles due to his condition. This brilliant young man is loved by his community, loves his bulldogs, and his life is certainly no less valuable than ours.

Consider this Mississippi child, 13-year old Joseph Smith, born with Muscular Atrophy. He is adored by his community, church, and large family as the youngest of seven children. He is unable to walk, speak in full sentences, or eat orally. He requires very regular medical attention and assistance from his family for most daily functions. Joseph has favorites—cowboys and zoo animals. He has dislikes—thunderstorms and the cold. He’s friendly and loving and communicates mostly with gestures and expressions. His life is of equal value to everyone else’s. It’s time for our laws to catch up to that self-evident truth.

Each life has an inherently equal value, no matter the race, sex, or ability of the individual. Mississippi has the chance to be a national leader on this issue and can affirmatively state that it rejects the throwaway culture so prevalent in our society today. The Life Equality Act does just that and deserves to be made law.

A legislative alternative to a medical marijuana initiative that critics say is designed to kill it passed the Mississippi House Tuesday.

House Concurrent Resolution 39 — sponsored by Rep. Trey Lamar (R-Senatobia) — passed 72-49 after several rounds of contentious debate on a largely party-line vote with most Republicans voting yes for the alternative.

If the resolution passes the Senate, it will appear on the bottom of the ballot in November alongside Initiative 65 since it doesn’t require a signature from Gov. Tate Reeves.

On the floor, Lamar said his bill was about creating a better program that wasn’t an entryway to recreational marijuana.

“If we’re going to have a program, we need to have a proper program,” Lamar said on the floor.

House Speaker Philip Gunn said in a news release that the alternative gives people in favor of medical marijuana a responsible pathway to having it. He also said that Initiative 65 comes extremely close to legalizing recreational marijuana. He also didn't like that Initiative 65 doesn’t allow the state to use the tax revenue from the program.

Initiative 65 would amend the state’s constitution to create a medical marijuana program in Mississippi and more than 220,000 statewide signed the petition to put it on the ballot. For ballot initiatives in Mississippi, the certified signature requirement is 106,190 total with at least 21,238 from each of the five congressional districts as they were in 2000.

The medical marijuana under Initiative 65 program would be administered by the state Department of Health, whose board opposes the ballot initiative.

HCR 39 would create a much less expansive program, with the number of producers strictly limited. The smoking of marijuana would also be limited to those with terminal conditions.

Initiative 65 would keep the revenues generated by medical marijuana in the program to pay for the state Department of Health to implement and enforce the rules and regulations in the program.

Since the beginning of the state’s ballot initiative system in 1972, only one legislative alternative has made it to a ballot and that was for Initiative 42, which would’ve given the Hinds County Chancery Court the power to appropriate more state money for individual school districts through injunctions.

Neither 42 nor the legislatively-approved alternative 42A passed (46.98 percent of voters in 2015 voted for 42). The difference between the two (8,933 votes or two percentage points) wouldn’t have been enough to get the original initiative passed into law.