House ends session by overriding Reeves vetoes on Gulf Coast loans, opioid funding
The Mississippi House closed its 2026 regular session on Wednesday with back-to-back unanimous veto overrides, passing into law a Gulf Coast revolving loan program and three opioid-related funding measures that Gov. Tate Reeves had struck from appropriations bills, before adjourning sine die, or without scheduling further meetings.
Neither vote drew a dissenting member. The vote on House Bill 1648, establishing a revolving loan program for recipients of Gulf Coast Restoration Fund monies, was 111 to 0. The vote on the three line items that Reeves had cut from the attorney general’s appropriations bill, House Bill 1924, was 110 to 0.
Reeves vetoed House Bill 1648 on April 13, writing that the “complete absence of any monitoring and audit requirements” was a fatal flaw. On the House floor Wednesday, Rep. Brent Anderson (R-Gulfport) directed members to lines 120 through 135 of the bill, where the statute requires the Department of Finance and Administration to file an annual report with the speaker of the House, the lieutenant governor, the chairs of both chambers’ appropriations committees, and the Legislative Budget Office by December 1 of each year, with specific accountability measures enumerated across 15 lines of text. “It’s clearly written right here,” Anderson said, “and requires annual reporting and audits be done to all entities involved.”
Rep. Omeria Scott (D-Laurel) used a sustained floor exchange with Anderson to establish that finding on the record, drawing a parallel to rural transformation legislation pending in the Senate. The House had struck Senate language in that bill and substituted provisions requiring monitoring procedures, procurement requirements, and audits—the same accountability structure Reeves had characterized as absent from House Bill 1648. “All this House is doing is being consistent,” Scott said. Anderson agreed without qualification.
The three opioid line items Reeves struck from House Bill 1924 carried $500,000 for the Hope Squad, a program that works to identify and assist students affected by the opioid crisis; $800,000 for the Gulf Coast Center for Nonviolence to expand access to residential treatment, counseling, and peer support services; and $250,000 for a life skills training program operating in 15 public schools across four counties. Rep. Sam Mims (R-McComb), chair of Appropriations D, moved the House to reconvene the committee during recess. After passing the line items out, the full House voted 110 to 0 to override. Rep. Jeffrey Hulum (D-Gulfport) made the case from the floor, characterizing it a bipartisan bill and framing the override as a question of dignity for the elderly, veterans and Mississippi families depending on programs the governor had cut.
A third veto—a partial veto of House Bill 1653, which carried local improvement projects for the City of Jackson, the City of Pascagoula and a drone manufacturing operation in Bassfield, Mississippi, several of which Reeves had also vetoed in the 2023 and 2024 sessions—drew the session’s longest floor debate before the House voted 82 to 33 to refer the matter back to committee. Rep. Robert Johnson (D-Natchez) challenged from the floor the argument that a new-session override would be procedurally nullified by the governor’s prior vetoes on the same projects. “If you want to override, override,” he said. “If you want to see the veto message stand, send it back to committee.” The motion to refer carried, leaving those projects unresolved heading into the interim.
With that, the House adjourned the 2026 regular session.
Image: Capitol rotunda (R.L. Nave)
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