Updates on governor vetoes, bills becoming law

As the 2025 session draws near to its April 6 conclusion, lawmakers will have dozens of opportunities to restore voting rights to some of Mississippi’s citizens.

As of March 28, about 60 or so bills had been filed with the Legislature requesting restoration of individual voting rights.

The process to file such bills with the Legislature is tedious and often unknown to many people who want to have their voting rights restored after being disenfranchised for committing certain felonies.

First, a disenfranchised person must request a lawmaker, typically from their district, to file a bill with the Legislature. Then, if approved, that bill would be put through the legislative process, including passing several committees, both chambers and by the governor, who has the option to veto a restoration bill.

There was effort early in the session to restore voting rights to certain nonviolent felony holders who had served their sentencing terms, but it died on the House calendar after House Constitution Chairman Price Wallace, R-Mendenhall, said he was given no indication the Senate would take the idea seriously.

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Disenfranchisement has its roots deep in the soil of Jim Crow. During the 1890 constitutional convention in Mississippi, the practice was adopted to prevent Black voters from reaching the polls, according to Clarion Ledger records and reporting.

“There is no use to equivocate or lie about the matter. Mississippi’s constitutional convention of 1890 was held for no other purpose than to eliminate the (explicative) from politics,” Former Gov. James K. Vardaman said of the decision years later. Other Southern states soon followed with similar laws, as reported by the Clarion Ledger.

Today, about 68,000 people are disenfranchised in Mississippi, according to the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit. Of them, more than 50,000 committed nonviolent felonies, which would have been the primary focus of the disenfranchisement legislation.

Governor vetoes Medicaid tech bill

Last week, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed his second bill of the legislative session, a piece of legislation meant to make changes mostly to a supplemental payment program for hospitals participating in the state’s Medicaid program.

Referred to as the Medicaid Tech bill, it typically addresses making changes to the state’s Medicaid program and also makes sure the state’s Medicaid program falls in compliance with federal guidelines.

This year’s bill would, among other things, have expanded some funding for hospitals in that program, Reeves said, and allowed for some out-of-state hospitals to participate in the program, which he said was impossible.

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After the veto was read to the Senate on Friday, Senate Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, recommitted the bill to committee for further work, which gives lawmaker an opportunity to send the bill back to Reeves with various amendments.

Happenings at the legislature last week

While Reeves has now vetoed two bills this session, plenty of others have made it past his desk and onto the books as new law.

This week alone, Reeves allowed a bill to establish presumed Medicaid eligibility for pregnant women pass without his signature. Reeves also signed a bill into law that established paid parental leave for primary care givers working in government.

Reeves also signed the Safe Solicitation Act, a bill that requires panhandlers to obtain a $25 permit to solicit donations at specific locations from 9 a.m. to sundown.

The bill had seen some debate in the legislature between Republicans and Democrats. Advocates of the bill have said the legislation would help to address safety concerns with homeless people soliciting donations on roadways.

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Opponents have said the bill would do nothing to address helping people who are homeless but only punish them for being so.

If anyone who panhandles violated the provisions in the law, they could be convicted of a misdemeanor that carries a fine of up to $500 or be imprisoned at a county jail for no longer than six weeks.

Grant McLaughlin covers the Legislature and state government for the Clarion Ledger. He can be reached at gmclaughlin@gannett.com or 972-571-2335.