Some bills died this session
With the end of the 2024 legislative session in which lawmakers worked for more than four months to file, propose, negotiate and vote on thousands of bills, came many items left on the cutting room floor.
Throughout the four-month-long session, lawmakers most notably came to blows over Medicaid expansion, restoring the ballot initiative, a process for the state populous to petition the government with legislation, voter suffrage, judicial redistricting and even several bills relating to the gambling industry in Mississippi.
Some of those bills, such as Medicaid expansion, judicial redistricting and a bill to introduce online mobile sports betting in the state all died on the second-to-last leg of the journey in conference committees. Those committees are groups of negotiators from the Senate and House set to iron out a compromise on bills that were passed in both chambers but with different versions.
Others, such as a bill to return voting rights to people previously convicted of nonviolent felonies, passed the House with a large amount of support, but it was stonewalled in the Senate.
Here is a closer look at those bills.
Medicaid expansion dies by deadline Thursday
Lawmakers in the House and Senate had been working on their proposals to expand Medicaid for several months before coming to a final compromise between their two plans by Monday, just five days before the end of the 2024 session.
However, that final compromise contained a work requirement in order for people to qualify for the expanded program. That fact was why House Democrats opposed the bill and vowed the caucus would vote against any bill.
While the Republican supermajority can always pass legislation if all members agree to, this bill required Democratic support to both make it to the governor’s desk and a two-thirds majority if Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed it, which Republican leadership didn’t have without the Democrats.
That opposition inspired House Speaker Jason White to draw up a new proposal Wednesday night for Senate leadership to consider taking to the full chamber for a vote, which would have allowed the state’s voters to have the final say on Medicaid expansion and whether it should include a work requirement.
That idea was met with a cold reception from the Senate, whose negotiators never signed the final conference report proposed by White and the House. That lack of action killed expansion Thursday night by a legislative deadline.
However, while some lawmakers saw the bill’s death as a defeat, others,
such as Reeves, see it as a victory. Reeves had spoken on several occasions publicly about his opposition to the bill.
Ballot Initiative
Earlier in the year, both chambers had passed a vehicle to restore the ballot initiative process in Mississippi after many years without the ability to have one.
The House passed the bill first, and then the Senate.
Both versions would have also restricted the process from it’s original version by not allowing voters to start an initiative that could amend the state constitution, change state abortion laws or mess with the state retirement plan.
The Senate version of the bill also included language requiring that anyone seeking to start an initiative had to register with the Secretary of State’s Office and come up with financial reports about where money came from.
However, Senate Accountability, Efficiency and Transparency Committee Chairman David Parker, R-Olive Branch, let the bill die on a motion to reconsider after many Senate’s Republicans voted against the bill as it initially passed the Senate.
Parker later told the Clarion Ledger he lost several votes for the bill, and that it would have died on the second vote, leading him not to bring it up for a vote.
Judicial redistricting
As many lawmakers have said throughout the past session, most things just don’t get done until it’s the deadline to do so.
That can now be said for lawmakers who tried this year to redistrict the state’s chancery and circuit court districts as well.
According to the state constitution, judicial districts need to be redrawn within five years following a U.S. Census, which collects data such as population and demographics from throughout the nation every 10 years.
A bill to redistrict courts passed through the House early in the session, although the bill only included state law code sections that would be further amended in the Senate. The Senate in March passed a full proposal seeking to redistrict the state.
At the time, several Senators were concerned that Black representation within districts could have been reduced without proper consideration of specific criteria used to redistrict. While the bill passed the Senate, it never made it past a deadline to come out of conference.
House Judiciary B Committee Chairman and negotiator Kevin Horan, R-Grenada, said that he and other negotiators were held up from reaching a final compromise because of other legislative priorities.
Those future negotiations would have allowed Horan and Senate Judiciary B Committee Chairman Brice
Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, to discuss other criteria such as single judge districts, days spent in court, post conviction activities as they relate to case loads and even considering some of the types of cases.
“We work well together on these issues but we all got tied up in other things like education, Medicaid, and I had several items to deal with in my committee and other committees as well,” Horan said.
Horan also said he and Wiggins plan to continue working on the legislation throughout the summer and into the fall so they can pass a finalized bill early into 2025.
Online mobile sports betting
One piece of legislation that drew interest early in the session was a House bill to give mobile sports betting companies the ability to partner with brick-and-mortar casinos in Mississippi so that customers could bet remotely online.
However, that bill sat with no action in the Senate for about two months, and it never made it out of conference.
Senate Gaming Committee Chairman David Blount, D-Jackson, said there were several industry players concerned about negative impacts on the state gambling business, and so the bill died so lawmakers could continue working on a new proposal for next year.
If it had passed, the legislation would have brought in millions in estimated tax revenues that would have gone to repair and maintenance of key infrastructure throughout the state such as roads and bridges.
Voting rights
Early in the session, House lawmakers passed a bill to return voting rights to people previously convicted of nonviolent felonies, but the move was halted in the Senate. It was the first big push to return voting rights to disenfranchised people in Mississippi in about a decade.
When asked why Senate Constitution Chairwoman Angela Hill, R-Picayune, never gathered her committee to discuss the legislation or pass it onto the Senate floor for a vote, she said the constitution spoke for itself.
Personal income tax reform
While many lawmakers and even Reeves campaigned in the past year on the promise to continue phasing down or eliminating personal income tax, not one bill aiming to do so passed this year.
Several lawmakers, including House Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, said that while continuing to phase down income tax is important, it wasn’t the absolute top priority this year.
Sen. Josh Harkins, R-Flowood, said he was not interested in considering further major tax cuts until the ones passed by lawmakers a few years ago are fully implemented.
Grant McLaughlin covers state government for the Clarion Ledger. He can be reached at gmclaughlin@gannett.com or 972-571-2335.