The call for a special session of the Mississippi Legislature to restore the citizens initiative process to amend the state constitution began early Monday, with Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley penning an op-ed urging Gov. Tate Reeves to act immediately.
By day’s end, Speaker of the House Philip Gunn and Secretary of State Michael Watson had released statements calling for a special session as well.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann did not join in that call, however.
In Starkville as part of his statewide tour to review the 2021 legislative session and outline his priorities for the 2022 session in January, Hosemann flatly rejected the idea that a special session is needed.
The demise of the citizen initiative process, approved by the Legislature in 1992, has been the hot topic since Friday, when the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled by a 6-3 vote that the medical marijuana initiative voters passed in November was invalid because the state had not updated the legislation that created the process.
The language said signatures required to place an initiative on the ballot must be equally distributed among the state’s five congressional districts. But when Mississippi lost a congressional district after the 2000 census, the language was never amended to require equal signature distribution among the four congressional districts.
The supreme court said the state has no valid initiative process, meaning the medical marijuana initiative voters approved by a near 3-to-1 margin in 2020 was rendered void on a technicality.
In his op-ed piece, Presley called on the governor to take immediate action to restore the initiative process.
“Why wait?” Presley wrote. “With the change of one word in one hour the Legislature could restore the people’s power. Governor Reeves should get that ball rolling today by calling a special session.”
Hosemann strongly disagreed.
“Is (Presley) going to pay for it? Tell Brandon if he has that in his budget that will be fine,” Hosemann said. “It’s $35,000 a day for a special session. The question is, is it well-spent? My answer would be no.
“This just happened 72 hours ago,” he added. “What we need to do is take our time and look at this. The decision needs to be made in the cold light of day as we go forward in an organized fashion, not just some knee-jerk move where we call a special session in the morning and change everything.”
Noting that two other initiatives passed in 2011 under what the supreme court now considers an invalid process, Hosemann said his office is researching whether those initiatives passed in 2011 — one limiting the state’s eminent domain powers, another requiring voter ID — are voided by Friday’s ruling.
Hosemann said revising the initiative language to make it comply with the court’s ruling through the normal process would allow the Legislature to examine the legislation more thoroughly and possibly make other adjustments to the process.
“If it turns out that it’s simply a matter of turning a five into a four, that’s fine,” Hosemann said. “But all of this should be considered in an organized fashion. I don’t want to pull the trigger on anything this week. I just read the (court) opinion yesterday for the first time. So I anticipate leadership meetings and meetings with my senators to start this discussion beginning this week and next week. I haven’t talked to Speaker Gunn, but I’m sure the House is doing the same thing. Out of this you’ll see some organized legislation coming out in January to address all those things.”
Reeves had made no statement on the matter as of this morning.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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