Mississippi voters to have say on flag
New design options will appear on Nov. ballot
JACKSON, Miss. – Prior to Sunday’s historic vote, many Mississippi politicians had been sidestepping the flag debate for years.
Their opinion on the controversial flag, which contains the Confederate battle flag, was irrelevant, they said, because two-thirds of Mississippi voters opted to keep the current design in a 2001 referendum. And if the flag were to change, they said it should only be done by another referendum.
Then, a wave of protests and increasingly loud calls for change from athletes, religious leaders and business groups pushed the Legislature to act this weekend.
But before lawmakers could decide whether to take down the flag, they had to decide who should decide — the people or the lawmakers?
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann told reporters Sunday that under the bill they passed, both do.
“I congratulate the Mississippi Legislature on their decisive action today removing this divisive symbol.” Former Gov. William Winter
Lawmakers voted to take down the current flag, but voters will have to approve whatever design is put forth by a nine-member commission.
If voters reject the new flag design during the November election, the commission will go back to work and present a new design. This will continue until a majority of Mississippians vote to approve the new state flag.
“I thought it was really important that the people vote on a flag,” Hosemann said. “... I trust Mississippians, but in this particular case, we were able to do both. We were able to remove the flag and then have them vote on the flag.”
2001 flag vote
The decision to take the flag may spare Mississippi from the contentious — sometimes painful — public hearings over the flag in 2001.
Speaking on the Senate floor Sunday, Sen. David Jordan recalled speaking at one hearing in the Delta, where a man yelled, “Watermelon!” While Jordan said there isn’t a Mississippian who doesn’t enjoy watermelon, he knew the man meant it as a racial slur.
Former Gov. William Winter, who chaired the 2001 flag commission, issued a statement Sunday, saying he was “delighted” to see the Legislature remove the confederate battle emblem from the state flag.
“I congratulate the Mississippi Legislature on their decisive action today removing this divisive symbol,” Winter said.
‘Let’s not steal their joy’
It appears several lawmakers who supported changing the flag still wanted the decision to be left up to voters. There were 120 lawmakers who voted on an initial resolution Saturday that later allowed Legislature to take up the actual flag bill. When the Legislature reconvened Sunday, 128 total lawmakers voted to take down the flag.
One of those was Rep. Chris Brown, R-nettleton. Brown ultimately voted to take down the current state flag, but he spoke on the House floor Saturday against taking such a vote.
“If we put the current flag on the ballot with another good design, the people of Mississippi will change it. I believe that,” Brown said. “Let’s not steal their joy.”
A poll released earlier this month by Jackson-based Chism Strategies found voters were statistically tied over whether to change the flag. Then on Wednesday night, the Mississippi Economic Council released a poll saying 55% of voters now support changing the flag to 41% opposed.
While some saw the poll as another reason for the Legislature to act now, Sen. Chris Mcdaniel, R-ellisville, said the opposite was true.
If lawmakers who supported changing the flag found the poll convincing, why not leave the decision up to the voters, Mcdaniel asked.
Mcdaniel said he personally found the poll to be “absolute nonsense.”
“In today’s world of modern polling, you give somebody a few thousand dollars and two days, and they’ll you whatever poll result they want to tell you,” Mcdaniel said on Senate floor. “They are claiming with a straight face that a majority of Mississippians now want to change the flag, and I am telling you that is unequivocally incorrect.”
The governor weighs in
Gov. Tate Reeves had long refused to touch the issue of whether Mississippi should retire its state flag, hewing to the 2001 referendum. He repeated it during his 2019 campaign for governor and again in recent weeks as the movement to change the flag built momentum.
Then, on Saturday, Reeves gave a green light to lawmakers, saying he would sign whatever flag bill they passed. Hours later, lawmakers formally started the process to change the state flag.
Reeves made the announcement on social media. Some praised him for making a difficult decision, while many pilloried him for going back on his word.
“You should be proud of our history and our people instead letting ‘outside agitators’ shame you into betraying your constituents!” one man wrote in a Facebook comment.
While the proposed law will ban the use of the Confederate battle flag on the Mississippi flag, it’s possible the new flag could still contain Confederate iconography, a point brought up in the Senate Sunday.
Whatever the new state flag looks like, it must include the words, “In God We Trust,” according to the proposed law.
The only other state flag that contains that phrase is Georgia’s flag, which was noted by Sen. Melanie Sojourner, Rnatchez.
“The full body of the state flag of Georgia is the official ‘Stars and Bars,’ the first official flag of the Confederate States of America,” Sojourner said. “... Does (the bill) speak to emblems of other historical significance of our state — even if they are Confederate symbols of our state?”
“It does not,” said Sen. Briggs Hopson, R-vicksburg, who presented the bill in the Senate.
“So I guess we could have something similar?” Sojourner asked, then continued speaking.
Contact Giacomo “Jack” Bologna at 601-961-7282 or gbologna@gannett .com. Follow him on Twitter @gbolognacl.