JACKSON, Miss. -- Governor Musgrove’s signing into law of the educational funding legislation adopted last week, and a brewing dispute in the House of Representatives over proposed Voter I.D. requirements, marked the fifth week of the 2003 regular session. A major deadline of the session also passed this week, with committees of both the House and Senate either approving or rejecting bills introduced by members in January. General (non-revenue) bills and constitutional amendments that were not reported out by the committees assigned to consider them by Tuesday evening, February 4, are now dead for the session. As is always the case, this includes the majority of all bills originally filed at the session’s beginning.

On Wednesday of this week, the two chambers began consideration in earnest of the bills that survived Tuesday’s deadline for committee action. The House and Senate each will have until next Thursday, February 13, to complete initial votes on the floor on all of these bills. Bills not adopted by that deadline then also will become dead for the session. The bills that are passed by the full House before next Thursday will be sent to the Senate, and Senate-passed bills will be sent to the House, and the whole committee consideration process will begin anew in each chamber.

Friday, February 7, marked the 32^nd day of the 90-day session. The scheduled adjournment sine die for the session is Sunday, April 6, although the actual end of each session usually comes a few days before the scheduled date.

Governor Musgrove on Wednesday afternoon signed the bills adopted last week that will provide the Fiscal Year 2004 (beginning July 1, 2003) funding for the state’s entire public education system -- amounting to some 62 percent of the entire General Fund budget. The governor said that the legislation means that Mississippi "means business" about education. "While other states are cutting education, we have taken the bold step to put our children and our future first," Musgrove said. "We know that good schools attract good jobs, which build good communities."

The FY 2004 budget will devote a total of $1.95 billion to K-12 education in Mississippi, which includes some $142.5 million in additional funds over and above the initial Legislative Budget Committee proposal. This represents full funding for the Mississippi Adequate Education Program for the first time, and also fully funds the next annual increment of the multi-year teacher pay raise designed ultimately to bring the salaries of Mississippi teachers to the Southeastern states’ average.

Higher education also was funded at levels exceeding those of the past few years. Mississippi’s community colleges (truly yielding the best "bang for the buck" in our state’s educational structure) will receive a total of $172 million in General Fund monies, which is $23.5 million above initial recommendations, and our eight public universities will garner a total of $585 million, which also is $70 million more than originally proposed for FY 2004. The entire General Fund budget is approximately $3.5 billion, and all educational expenditures amount to 62 percent of the total. Funding education at high levels unquestionably is the Legislature’s top financial priority for FY 2004.

The adoption of a meaningful Voter I.D. mechanism to discourage election fraud, a long-time goal of Mississippi Republicans and a political sore point for the state’s Democrats, was the subject of a very abbreviated debate on the House floor Wednesday. Rep. Bill Denny (R–Jackson), a senior GOP leader in the House, offered a Voter I.D. amendment to HB 1146, a bill designed to allow Mississippi to benefit from the Federal "Help America Vote Act of 2002" passed by Congress. The Denny amendment, far from being onerous or oppressive, would permit a wide variety of common identification documents to be used to identify the voter at the polls, and if the voter had no identification at all, he or she nevertheless could proceed directly into the voting booth and cast his or her vote after simply signing a statement under oath to the effect that the person really is who he or she claims to be. Similar Voter I.D. provisions have been adopted in other states, and these fraud-prevention measures generally have been approved by the U.S. Justice Department as not being discriminatory to minorities or otherwise violative of the Federal Voting Rights Act.

Before any action could be taken on the Denny amendment, however, and within mere minutes of the amendment being offered, debate was brought to a sudden halt by Rep. George Flaggs (D–Vicksburg) who raised a point of order on the bill. A point of order is a parliamentary maneuver contesting the technical validity of the measure before the House. When a point of order is raised (in writing, as is required), the Speaker usually takes the point of order under consideration and all debate on the particular measure is suspended until the Speaker makes a parliamentary ruling one way or the other.

The curious thing about Wednesday’s events is that the Flaggs point of order does not attack the validity of the Denny Amendment at all (the amendment itself evidently being proper from a technical standpoint), but rather calls into question the validity of the original bill as brought out of the Apportionment and Elections Committee, chaired by Rep. Tommy Reynolds (D–Charleston). If the Flaggs point of order is upheld, this will kill HB 1146 by which Mississippi expects to receive some $34 million from the Federal government to modernize and standardize voting procedures and machinery. Clearly, some members are so opposed to the very idea of effective Voter I.D. that they are willing to press a point of order and risk sacrificing $34 million for the sole purpose of avoiding a vote by the full House on the issue of Voter I.D. (And, it is having to cast the vote itself and not just the possible result of the vote that they resist, because otherwise the point of order could have been held in reserve and not raised at all unless and until the Denny amendment actually passed).  Click the link that follows in order to read the full text of the Denny amendment to HB 1146.

The intriguing question is that with $34 million in Federal funds at stake, why would the Apportionment and Elections Committee ever bring to the floor a bill containing possible technical flaws that could subject the bill to a point of order? If the point of order is rejected, consideration of the Denny amendment and of HB 1146 itself will resume. However, if the Flaggs’ position that HB 1146 is fatally defective prevails, Mississippi apparently will stand to lose $34 million needed to implement election reform –– all apparently because some members do not want the political discomfort of a floor vote on the Voter I.D. issue. Speaker Tim Ford (D–Baldwyn), who scrupulously adheres "to the book" in making his parliamentary decisions, no doubt will confer closely with House legal staff and announce his ruling soon, perhaps as early as Monday.

By week's end, the full House had taken up and approved more than 100 bills. Starting later this month, those same measures will be considered by Senate committees and the full Senate if they pass muster in those committees. Meanwhile, House committees later in February will be considering the bills that passed the full Senate this week.  Click the following link to track the progress of any bill filed in either the House or Senate during the 2003 regular session, or to see a copy of any such bill.

Here are some examples of the bills that passed the full House of Representatives this week:

--Eight economic development-related bills that will help Mississippi continue to compete for major industrial clients, such as the Nissan project that will open in a few months. Legislation to bring Nissan to Mississippi was first passed in 2000, but has been continually fine-tuned ever since to enhance the state’s economic development activities. The bills passing the House that affect economic development in some way include HBs 790, 837, 840, 841, 849, 919, 1268 and 1335.

--HB 283 to allow the use of tax evasion as an offense with which to prosecute drug dealers.

--HB 1415 to allow Leflore County to use one wing of a state prison in Greenwood that had been closed last year as a county jail.

--HB 260 would allow the board of supervisors of any county to employ an attorney as a full-time employee of the county.

--HB 1418 would allow local governments to create an economic development alliance without identifying or providing details about a specific project.

--HB 487 would allow some state inmates to get 30 days off their sentence for each 30 days they participate in an approved work program. Rep. Bennett Malone (D–Carthage), who chairs the Penitentiary Committee, told the House that this legislation would affect about 850 inmates a year and would save the state an estimated $10 million annually. Conservative opponents of the measure contended that despite the possible budgetary benefit, this new statute would allow an inmate potentially to serve less than half the time the sentencing judge had expected, and thereby would make a mockery of the state’s "truth in sentencing" law, already severely watered down by the actions of the past few sessions.

--A bill that was killed on the House floor would have allowed cities the flexibility and discretion to contract for parking enforcement services now handled by city employees, such a meter maids. Critics said such a plan could lead to other contracts for work now handled by public workers –– many in the House evidently hold to the dubious idea that jobs in the public sector should be protected, even when the private sector may possibly perform the same services more efficiently and at lower cost to the taxpayers. The bill was authored by Rep. Tom Wallace (D–Jackson) and was handled on the floor by Rep. Greg Snowden (R–Meridian).

--HB 880 would require charter boat captains to undergo periodic random testing for drug use and also require them to have liability insurance.

--HB 1113 expands the Mississippi Rural Risk Underwriting Association law to provide a market for residential property insurance in both rural areas and other areas of the state.

--HB 897 revises some of the guidelines for the Medicaid program. This health insurance program for low-income citizens, which is one of the costliest of all state programs, seems to require the constant scrutiny of the Legislature.

--HB 860 allows local governments to donate to primary health care clinics whose purpose is to provide a myriad of health-care services to uninsured residents. Clients must meet certain income limits, be willing to pay a minimal amount for services and have no access to health insurance.

--HB 861 establishes a coordinating council for remote sensing and geographic information systems. The council will be composed of various state agency heads and representatives of local governments and other entities. The bill was authored by Rep. Cecil Brown (D–Jackson), and was handled on the floor by Rep. Greg Snowden (R–Meridian).

--HB 1120 makes it a felony to kill or injure a public service animal, such as a K-9 dog, drug dog, bomb dog, etc.

--HB 807 deletes the blood test requirements for marriage licenses and reduces the waiting period between the filing of the application and the issuance of the license.

--HB 973 would increase the jurisdictional limit of County courts to $200,000.00.

--HB 1400 would allow a city or county to sell unneeded property at auction instead of following a bid procedure, provided that the auction price met or exceeded the appraised value.

--HB 1312 provides liability protection for a sponsor or advertiser of an event, such as a concert, when that person has no control over the conduct of the event.

--HB 746 permits a school district to be exempt from the required 180-day school calendar for time missed due to certain true emergencies and natural disasters. This would not include mere days of bad weather, but would allow some administrative flexibility in situations where the President or the Governor has declared a disaster or state of emergency.

--HB 1414 to regulate non-profit debt management services.

--HB 643 to allow the taking of deer with less than four points if experts feel it is necessary for best herd management practices on certain lands.

--A bill defeated on the House floor was HB 363, authored by Rep. Gary Chism (R–Columbus), which would have prohibited the members of a city governing board from voting themselves a pay raise unless they delayed the effective date of the raise until after the next election. This was a "good government" measure that was defeated because some members feared it would curtail excessively the discretion of local elected officials.

--Interestingly, another bill which was defeated would have allowed Boards of Supervisors to receive the automatic pay raises now allowed to them which are brought about by increased county property valuation, but without first having to adopt a public resolution claiming and accepting the raise. Opponents of the measure successfully argued that if this requirement were to be removed, the public very well could be kept in the dark about a substantial pay raise given to the Supervisors.

Numerous commending resolutions were passed including those honoring several state champion athletic teams, the late Delta Council Executive Vice-President B.F. Smith of Leland, civil rights leader Winson Hudson of Carthage, country/pop artist Steve Azar of Greenville, WorldCom whistleblower and Time Person of the Year Cynthia Cooper of Clinton, the late historian and author Stephen Ambrose of Bay Saint Louis, and Mechelle Ramshur of Columbia, the state's Outstanding Elementary Science Teacher of the Year, who teaches in Sumrall. Mrs. Hudson was personally honored in the House chamber on Friday.

Representative Greg Snowden (R-Meridian) maintains a legislative web site to aid constituents and other interested persons in obtaining information about state government. The web site address is www.gregsnowden.com. Rep. Snowden may be reached by e-mail at any time at greg@gregsnowden.com, or by telephone at 601-693-5700 (Meridian office) or 601-527-5350 (cell phone - a local call from anywhere within Mississippi).

EDITORIAL NOTE: Most of the facts and much of the organization of the above summary is due to the fine work of Mac Gordon, of the House Information Office. However, although Mr. Gordon provides this information weekly to all House members, each member has the privilege of using it however he or she sees fit. Rep. Snowden has taken the liberty to re-write much of the standard summary, and to include his own comments and expressions of opinion. Accordingly, while Rep. Snowden gratefully acknowledges the work of the House Information Office in organizing and supplying reliable and timely information as to the workings of the House, all comment and all opinion contained in this summary is that of Rep. Snowden alone, and not that of Mr. Gordon or any other staff employee of the House of Representatives.