Senate Bill 2534, sponsored by Sen. Walter Michel, would allow for the direct shipment of wine to a house.
Mississippi is one of seven states that currently prohibit the shipment of wine to a house, meaning consumers in most states enjoy this freedom. This would end that prohibition.
This, however, is just one small part of the state’s desire to regulate, and in many cases, prohibit, legal alcohol sales in the state.
While the internet, technological developments, and more have made the purchase and production of alcohol freer and easier in other states, Mississippi has denied its citizens personal liberty on this issue.
The state has discouraged craft beer production, overregulated alcohol distribution, and cracked down on the ability for citizens to privately produce alcohol. Permits are difficult to secure, and thus many businesses have been left in the dark, unable to expand or operate.
Mississippi could make considerable strides by entrusting in its citizens a greater personal responsibility and freedom when it comes to alcohol sale and production.
There is much the state could do, but this is a step in the right direction.
MCPP has reviewed this legislation and finds that it is aligned with our principles and therefore should be supported.
Read SB 2534.
Track the status of this and all bills in our legislative tracker.
Senate Bill 2534, sponsored by Sen. Walter Michel, would allow for the direct shipment of wine to a house.
Mississippi is one of seven states that currently prohibit the shipment of wine to a house, meaning consumers in most states enjoy this freedom. This would end that prohibition.
This, however, is just one small part of the state’s desire to regulate, and in many cases, prohibit, legal alcohol sales in the state.
While the internet, technological developments, and more have made the purchase and production of alcohol freer and easier in other states, Mississippi has denied its citizens personal liberty on this issue.
The state has discouraged craft beer production, overregulated alcohol distribution, and cracked down on the ability for citizens to privately produce alcohol. Permits are difficult to secure, and thus many businesses have been left in the dark, unable to expand or operate.
Mississippi could make considerable strides by entrusting in its citizens a greater personal responsibility and freedom when it comes to alcohol sale and production.
There is much the state could do, but this is a step in the right direction.
MCPP has reviewed this legislation and finds that it is aligned with our principles and therefore should be supported.
Read SB 2534.
Track the status of this and all bills in our legislative tracker.
Mississippi became one step closer to legalizing the cultivation of hemp after it easily passed the House this afternoon.
The debate was lengthy, many questions were asked, amendments offered, but in the end the Mississippi Hemp Cultivation Act passed 105-9. The nine voting against the bill were all Republicans: Reps. Jim Beckett, Donnie Bell, Scott Bounds, Jill Ford, Bill Kinkade, Sam Mims, Ken Morgan, Karl Oliver, and Troy Smith.
Ford, a Madison Republican, offered a toxic amendment that would require any hemp plants “that are processed for use in medicinal products or products that are ingested or applied to the body must be grown and cultivated in organic soil.” This would mean soil that does not contain man-made contaminants, something Rep. Tommy Reynolds (D-Charleston), the author of the bill, said would render the law useless and unworkable. The amendment was tabled on a voice vote.
A near identical bill has been offered in the Senate where legalization stalled in 2019, and was turned into the task force that met last year. But momentum is on the side of legalization.
If that is true, this would just be part of a national trend.
We have seen a massive move toward hemp legalization at the state level after the 2018 Farm Bill expanded the cultivation of hemp. Previously, federal law did not differentiate hemp from other cannabis plants, even though you can’t get high from hemp. Because of this, it was essentially made illegal. But we did have pilot programs or limited purpose small-scale program for hemp, largely for research.
Now, hemp cultivation is much broader, with the Farm Bill allowing the transfer of hemp across state lines, with no restrictions on the sale, transport, or possession of hemp-derived products. There are still limitations, but most states have taken the opportunity to find new markets for those who would like to cultivate hemp.
In fact, hemp cultivation is legal in 47 states today. Mississippi, Idaho, and South Dakota are the lone holdouts. And the South Dakota legislature Ok’d hemp legalization last year, but it was vetoed by Gov. Kristi Noem.
The act will be effective after passage, something supporters hope will allow farmers to cultivate hemp this growing season.
A committee in the Mississippi House gutted what could’ve been a big reform to the state’s civil asset forfeiture system.
House Bill 1398 is sponsored by Rep. Dana Criswell (R-Southaven) and would’ve put caps on what kind of property that state and local governments can acquire via civil asset forfeiture.
The House Judiciary B Committee rewrote the bill (known as a committee substitute), removed the caps, and changed it to 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.
The original bill would’ve had greater impacts. It would’ve exempted from civil asset forfeiture:
- Homestead real property.
- Currency totaling $500 or less.
- A vehicle with a market value of $2,500 or less.
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’ve 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.
Right now, state and local law enforcement agencies can seize any property without limits or a cap, even if the property owner hasn’t been charged with a crime. If prosecutors can prove in civil court, with a lower burden of proof, that the property has been used in the commission of a crime or is the proceeds of a crime, a judge can rule in favor of the seizing authority to take title to the property.
Then the property can be reused by the seizing agency or sold, with the proceeds split 80 percent between the seizing agency and 20 percent to the attorney (either a district attorney or one from the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics) that took the case to court.
For the property owner to prevent their property being forfeited to law enforcement, they must file a lawsuit. That happens seldomly, as only 39 property owners contested the forfeiture in court (11.04 percent) in 2019.
In 2018, 30 property owners filed suit to recover their property, or 9.52 percent.
Bills that were introduced in both the House and the Senate to allow the sale of wine in grocery stores died Tuesday without being considered in either chamber.
House Bill 981, sponsored by Rep. Brent Powell (R-Flowood), and Senate Bill 2531, sponsored by Sen. Walter Michel (R-Ridgeland), would have allowed wine to be sold in grocery stores, while providing up to six permits. You are currently limited to one permit.
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 wine in grocery stores 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 this idea.
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.
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.
We did, however, see some movement on other alcohol freedom bills:
- SB 2534 would authorize the direct shipment of wine. It cleared the Senate Finance committee after a reverse repealer was placed on the bill, ensuring it comes back from the House. A much narrower bill, HB 1088, that would allow you to have wine shipped, but only to a liquor store, passed the House Ways and Means committee.
- HB 4 would increase the number of liquor store permits you can have.
- SB 2552 would remove the prohibition on how much alcohol a craft brewery can sell on its premises.
A gang bill in the Mississippi Senate is intended to combat the rise of gangs in the state’s penitentiaries but could cost taxpayers billions by increasing the state’s prison population after several years of decline.
Senate Bill 2459 — sponsored by state Sen. Brice Wiggins (R-Pascagoula) — would add additional penalties for felonies (up to 15 years in prison and/or a fine of between $10,000 and $15,000) committed as part of a gang on top of the original sentence. It would also render those convicted of being in a gang as ineligible for parole and earned time. Wiggins’ bill also would make criminal gang activity a violent crime even if the underlying offense committed is non-violent.
Also, the burden of proof for convicting one of criminal gang activity would be a preponderance of evidence, a lower evidentiary standard that is used in civil court. This is below the standard required for criminal court, which is beyond a reasonable doubt.
With that kind of language in the bill, the number of those considered gang members under the law would increase, swelling the prison population along with longer sentences. Using data from the Mississippi Department of Corrections at a cost of $39.91 per day to house each inmate, each 15-year sentence for gang-related felonies would cost between $44,000 and $218,000 per prisoner. If the 11,917 state prisoners that the MDOC identified as gang members had been sentenced under the language in Wiggins’ bill, the state could've added up to $2.6 billion in additional costs.
Passage of SB 2459 will also undo many of the criminal justice reform efforts that have lowered the number of those incarcerated while cutting the amount spent by taxpayers on corrections.
In January 2014, before the passage of House Bill 585, the state’s inmate population was 22,008. Violent offenders made up 34.7 percent (7,632 inmates) of the prison population. As of January 2020, the state’s prison population is 19,057 and violent offenders (9,410) represent 49.38 percent of it. That still ranks Mississippi the third highest nationally, trailing only Louisiana and Oklahoma.
According to testimony given by Chief Justice Mike Randolph to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, taxpayers have saved $452 million in incarceration costs since the passage of HB 585 in 2014.
A similar bill in the House, HB 816, will likely die without making it out of committee. State Rep. Fred Shanks (R-Brandon) authored the House version.
Another problem with SB 2459 is there is already existing law governing gangs on the books in the Magnolia State.
The Mississippi Street Gang Act was passed in 1997 and allows the state Attorney General, district attorneys, or a county attorney to bring a civil case against any gang (defined as three or more persons with an established hierarchy that engages in felonious criminal activity).
The existing law also proscribes that anyone convicted a felony committed for, directed by or in association with a criminal street gang would be imprisoned for no less than one year and no more than one half of the maximum imprisonment term for that offense.
Those selling or buying goods or performing services for a gang could face the same punishment as above and an a possible fine of up to $10,000.
The owner of large medical cannabis cultivator in Arkansas is funding a legislative push to challenge the medical marijuana ballot initiative that will be in front of voters in the fall.
Mississippi law allows legislative alternatives to appear alongside ballot initiatives, and multiple alternatives have been introduced. If an alternative was adopted, the legislature would be tasked with creating a medical marijuana program in 2021, something they haven’t exactly shown an interest in over the past two decades.
They haven’t even approved the cultivation of hemp, though highly regulated bills are pending in both chambers.
The difference between the initiative and what some legislators want is obvious. The initiative is a Constitutional amendment that writes a very clean, market based program into law. Legislators wouldn’t be able to make changes or tightly regulate the program as they have done with the CBD oil program. But the alternative puts the ball back in the their court, allowing the legislature to create a small program, with limited options, that may or may not be operating any time in the foreseeable future.
There are four such concurrent resolutions in the legislature, with three in the House and one in the Senate, though House Concurrent Resolution 39, by state Rep. Trey Lamar (R-Senatobia), appears to be the resolution that is moving. It is highly restrictive and limited, allowing for a "limited number of state-licensed manufacturers," while permitting the Board of Health and similar opponents of medical marijuana to design what they would like.
Since they are resolutions and not bills, they only require approval of the legislature and don’t need the signature of Gov. Tate Reeves to appear on the ballot.
Where does Steven LaFrance, the owner of Natural State Medicinals in Arkansas, fit in this? His attorney, Alex Gray, recently told Marijuana Moment that LaFrance would like to see licensing caps and a “merit-based” licensing scheme. Sounds a lot like HCR 39.
The ballot initiative would allow those who fit within the regulations to open a business in Mississippi in a free market system without caps or state preference. Essentially, if you follow the law, you can open a business and be in business if you can make money. But the restricted access would likely play very well for LaFrance, who wants to enter the Mississippi market.
At this point, Mississippi will likely have medical marijuana after the November elections. It’s just a matter of what that program looks like. For LaFrance, he seems to understand very well how business is often conducted in Mississippi - by currying favor with legislators and limiting competition.
House Bill 985, sponsored by Rep. Dan Eubanks, would prohibit the Department of Health from regulating who can discuss general weight loss programs. This would allow entrepreneurs who are knowledgeable about nutrition and healthy lifestyles, even if they are not registered dietitians, to earn a living.
Yesterday, the Mississippi Justice Institute announced a lawsuit challenging the Department’s ban on speech about weight loss after Donna Harris was threatened with jail time and fines for offering weight-loss tips to happy customers.
Donna has a bachelor’s degree in nutrition and is a certified personal trainer. Her life passion is sharing information about nutrition and physical fitness. After leaving the workforce to raise her daughter at home, Donna was looking for a new career that would allow her to balance her work and her life as a busy mom.
As a local fitness instructor, she had already attracted a loyal following. Her clients knew Donna was passionate and knowledgeable about nutrition and physical fitness, so many began turning to her for weight-loss advice. Some even suggested she start private classes, offering to pay for her services. So, Donna decided to make the plunge. She would become an entrepreneur. She began offering an eight-week weight loss program at the beginning of 2020 and had 70 participants signed up immediately.
Donna’s website included disclaimers that she wasn’t a registered dietician, and that she would only be providing weight loss strategies and would not be offering information to treat specific medical conditions. And Mississippi law specifically exempts people offering “general nutrition information as to the use of foods, food materials, or dietary supplements” from the licensure requirements. The Department claimed that Donna and others are only allowed to provide government-approved guidelines, such as the Food Pyramid and myplate.gov, not provide the advice she was offering. To satisfy the state, and avoid jail time and fines, Donna would have to complete 1,200 hours of training that she doesn’t need or have the time to complete.
This legislation would allow Donna and others like her to earn a living, while decreasing our state’s regulatory burden.
MCPP has reviewed this legislation and finds that it is aligned with our principles and therefore should be supported.
Read HB 985.
Track the status of this bill and all bills in our legislative tracker.
Bills that would allow the Occupational Licensing Review Commission to review existing regulations are moving in both chambers.
Mississippi’s Occupational Licensing Review Commission, adopted in 2016, is a positive step to reigning in the regulatory arm of the state, but is limited to new regulations only. This would give the Commission – which is made up of the governor, attorney general, and secretary of state – the ability to review existing regulations and to act upon it if it does not:
- Increase economic opportunities for all of its citizens by promoting competition and thereby encouraging innovation and job growth.
- Use the least restrictive regulation necessary to protect consumers from present, significant and substantiated harms that threaten public health and safety.
Today, Mississippi has more than 117,000 regulations, which numerous empirical studies show to have a detrimental effect on economic growth. Mississippi also licenses 66 low-and-middle income occupations. According to a recent report from the Institute for Justice, Mississippi has lost 13,000 jobs because of occupational licensing and the state has suffered an economic value loss of $37 million.
Senate Bill 2790, authored by Sen. John Polk, would give the OLRC the ability to review the substance of any regulation. It was double referred to Business and Financial Institutions and Accountability, Efficiency, Transparency and cleared both committees. House Bill 1104, authored by Rep. Jerry Turner, would give the commission the ability to review regulations dating back to 2012. It has cleared the House Accountability, Efficiency, Transparency committee.
A separate House bill, HB 1260, was similar to the Senate version that allowed a review of any regulation. It, however, was double referred. It cleared the Accountability, Efficiency, Transparency committee but needed to be acted upon by Judiciary A. It faces today’s calendar deadline for committee action, or it will be dead.