In any legislature, bad laws are proposed. It is part of the process.
On Wednesday, the Mississippi House of Representatives went beyond bad to downright awful and New Hope’s Andy Boyd, who represents District 37 in the House, is squarely in the middle of it.
House Resolution 11 is a cynical and dishonest attempt to restore the people’s right to ballot initiatives. That right was taken away from voters by the Mississippi Supreme Court, which voided the initiative statute in 2021 on what can only be described as a technicality – one outdated phrase in the law. The Supreme Court didn’t just throw the baby out with the bathwater. They threw the tub, soap, washcloths and rubber duck out with it, too. It was a dishonestly, wrong-headed cowardly thing to do.
Rather than make that simple change in the language and keep the initiative process whole, the legislature is now doing a bait-and-switch; HR11 allows voters to change general law, but not amend the constitution, which prevents the legislature from undermining the will of the people by changing the law through legislation.
That in and of itself is an insult to voters because it makes voters powerless to overrule the legislature and exert the will of the people at the ballot box.
If that were all that was wrong with HR11, it would be bad enough.
But this legislation makes stipulations that prevent voters from changing some general laws.
A handful of male Republicans – including bill co-sponsor Andy Boyd – have decided that there are some issues that voters should not be allowed to weigh in on at the ballot box.
Among the exceptions to the new-and-diminished initiative process, voters can’t submit initiatives that make it easier to establish a labor union, make changes to the state employee retirement system (PERS) or expand Medicaid or any other law that affects state funds.
Oh, there is also another thing that citizens cannot take to the polls under the proposed initiative process: any changes to the state’s abortion laws, which are among the strictest in the nation.
Mississippi’s abortion laws have limited exceptions, including when the life of the pregnant mother is in jeopardy and in instances of rape and incest, when those crimes are reported to law enforcement.
HR11 was passed by the House Wednesday. On the same day, the Journal of the American Medical Association released a report on pregnancies by rape since Roe v. Wade was overturned and states began writing their own abortion laws.
Acknowledging the difficulty in accurately quantifying such statistics, the report estimated that in Mississippi, 1,409 women have been impregnated by a rapist in the 17 months that Mississippi’s abortion law was triggered.
Rape is one of the most traumatic experiences imaginable. Under Mississippi law, a girl or woman who is impregnated by a rapist and doesn’t report the rape to law enforcement must carry the product of that rape to term. Studies make it clear a small percentage of rape victims report the crime to authorities. Additionally, Mississippi no longer has an abortion clinic for pregnant girls and women who meet those exceptions. Carrying the product of a rape to term means reliving the trauma over and over again, for months. Mississippi is also one of seven states that has no law that prevents rapists from gaining custody of children conceived without consent. In those instances, a woman may be forced to have contact with her rapist for years.
Based on the above-referenced report, on average almost three Mississippi girls/women are impregnated by a rapist every day and likely are expected by state law to carry to term a child they never wanted, never planned for or could reasonably be held responsible for. Their bodies are the host of the consequences of a violent, degrading, dehumanizing crime.
Given that knowledge, do you think Mississippians might want to have their voices heard at the ballot box, something voters in 12 states will do this year?
Andy Boyd doesn’t think so. His name as co-sponsor on HR11 says as much.
I wonder what Boyd would say if he were encountered by one of those pregnant rape victims. Congratulations, maybe?
Ask him yourself. His House email address is [email protected].
What matters now are the positions held by our state senators, Chuck Younger ([email protected]) and Angela Turner Ford ([email protected]).
HR11 should be defeated in the Senate not only because it is an inferior substitute for the original initiative process, but because it is a cruel law that prevents the people of our state from making sure that the victims of rape aren’t further victimized by at legislature that simply doesn’t give a damn.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
A previous version of this opinion piece incorrectly described Mississippi’s exemptions for abortions. The piece has also been updated to clarify estimates in some statistics.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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