Legislative roundup

Week of Feb. 10-14, 2025

From staff reports

This week, an important date in the legislative calendar passed: the deadline for floor action on bills originating in corresponding chambers. In other words, if a Senate bill made it out of committee and onto the calendar, Thursday was the deadline for the Senate to take action on it before it died on the calendar. After this deadline, surviving legislation will be taken up by the other chamber and the process starts all over again.

Education

It seems likely that HB 1433 is dead. The bill would have allowed students in schools that have received a D or F accountability rating during the last five years to have the opportunity to attend private schools on the state’s dime. While we know that nothing is “dead-dead” until Sine Die, it looks like House Speaker Jason White has not been able to whip up the votes he needs to pass it out of the chamber. The amount the family would be reimbursed would be equal to the amount of money that student received in per-pupil spending in their public school.

HB 1078, the Equal Opportunity for Students with Special Needs Act, would relax requirements around Mississippi’s ESA (Education Savings Account) program. It has passed out of the House. We’ll see how the Senate Education Committee handles it.

It will also be interesting to see how the Senate Education Committee handles HB 1435, the House’s open enrollment bill. The bill would allow students the ability to transfer out of their home school district to a nearby district without the need to be granted permission by their home district to leave. The student’s per-pupil state funding would follow them to their new school district.

Democracy

Shockingly (not), the legislature has for the fourth year in a row refused to comply with a Mississippi Supreme Court directive to fix the ballot initiative process.

HCR 30 wasn’t even close to a return to the halcyon days of actual direct democracy, but it was the only remaining vehicle for the Republican supermajority to take the position that they care about returning this basic right afforded to Mississippi voters by the state Constitution. The House has decided to let the measure die after the Senate indicated that they have no interest in taking it up. So, here we are, right back where we were in 2021, when the Supreme Court first directed the legislature to address the congressional district signature-gathering issue (the original enabling legislation specified five districts – a number that has since been reduced to four). Maybe next year will be lucky session number five and we will finally see the ballot initiative process restored.

Taxes

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has finally revealed the Senate tax plan. While the House plan would seek to completely eliminate the income tax over 10 years, the Senate tax plan would reduce the income tax to 2.99% within four years. The Senate would also reduce the grocery tax from 7% to 5% by July 2026 and raise the gas tax by 3 cents per year over three years to help pay for critically-needed roads and bridges upkeep.

What’s Next?

With the chambers exchanging legislation, there will be plenty to keep an eye on in the coming weeks. Priorities between chambers don’t always align, and lots of legislation that sailed through its originating chamber may not even survive the opposing chamber’s committee process. Stay tuned, because it’ll only get more interesting (and definitely more contentious) from this point on.