Mississippi Today
Voter initiative would be hard to use under bills moving in Legislature
If Mississippians are allowed to vote to enact a new initiative process to allow citizens to bypass the Legislature and place issues on the ballot, it is likely to be much more restrictive than the process that was deemed invalid in 2021 by the state Supreme Court.
On Wednesday, the Senate Accountability, Efficiency, Transparency Committee passed a proposal to restore voters' initiative rights. But the Committee proposal is significantly more restrictive than the one first enacted in the early 1990s and used until the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional. The Senate AET proposal would require double the number of voters' signatures to put something on the ballot, and limit the issues that voters can take up.
The AET Committee measure most likely will be taken up in the coming weeks by the full Senate.
Earlier this session the House passed a proposal, now pending in the Senate, that also is more restrictive than the old process. If the Legislature does pass a proposal to finally renew the initiative, it still must be approved by the voters before it will be valid. But voters will have to accept or reject what the Legislature offers. They cannot change it.
Senate AET Chairman David Parker, R-Southaven, said any procedure allowing citizens to bypass the Legislature and change the state's laws should be “onerous” and safeguards should be taken to limit out-of-state influence on the process.
Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, pointed out that under the old process a limited number of initiatives garnered the necessary signatures needed to make the ballot. Blount said the fear that the process would be overly influenced by out-of-state interests “is a theory, but we have 30 years of evidence to show what the people of Mississippi did with the initiative process they used to have. And they voted for good things and voted against bad things.” Only three initiatives were approved by votes during those 30 years.
Both the House and Senate proposals prohibit the initiative process from being used to change the state's near total ban on abortions. In other states, voters have rejected placing restrictions on abortions. Both House and Senate leaders say they do not want out-of-state interests influencing Mississippi's abortion laws.
The Senate proposal passed out of committee Tuesday would require the signatures equal to 10% of the registered voters from the last presidential election – more than 200,000 signatures of registered voters – to place an issue on the ballot. The House plan would require the signatures of about 166,000. The proposal ruled invalid by the Supreme Court because of a technicality would have required about 100,000 signatures of registered voters.
Parker said the higher signature threshold is needed because technology has made it much easier to gather signatures than it was in the early 1990s.
The Senate bill would not remove the often-criticized provision in the old initiative process that allowed the Legislature to place a competing alternative to the citizen-sponsored initiative on the ballot, causing confusion among voters.
The Senate bill would require sponsors of an initiative to take money from another area of state government if their proposal cost money, Blount said. He said the process would be unworkable for a number of issues, such as expanding Medicaid. For instance, the Legislature is considering a proposal to require medical providers to pay for a portion of the cost of expanding Medicaid. Citizens could not offer such a proposal under the House and Senate initiative plans, Blount said.
In addition, the Senate proposal would require 60% of voters to approve an initiative in order for it to pass. Of the 26 states with initiatives, none have as high of voter threshold to change all general laws.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1892
MAY 21, 1892
Crusading journalist Ida B. Wells published a column exposing the lynchings of African-American men and denouncing claims that the lynchings were meant to protect white women.
Her anti-lynching campaign came after a mob killed three of her friends, who had reportedly opened a grocery store that competed with a white-owned store in Memphis.
Upset by Wells' writings, a white mob destroyed her presses and threatened to kill her if she ever published again. She left Memphis for Chicago, but she continued to expose lynchings, calling for national legislation to make lynching a crime.
In 1898, she took her protest to the White House.
“Nowhere in the civilized world save the United States of America do men, possessing all civil and political power, go out in bands of 50 and 5,000 to hunt down, shoot, hang or burn to death a single individual, unarmed and absolutely powerless,” she wrote. “We refuse to believe this country, so powerful to defend its citizens abroad, is unable to protect its citizens at home.”
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, which opened in 2018, features a reflection space in honor of her.
Congress finally passed an anti-lyncing law in the 2021-22 session. The Emmett Till Antilynching Act defines lynching as a federal hate crime.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1961
MAY 20, 1961
A white mob of more than 300, including Klansmen, attacked Freedom Riders at the Greyhound Bus Station in Montgomery, Alabama. Future Congressman John Lewis was among them.
“An angry mob came out of nowhere, hundreds of people, with bricks and balls, chains,” Lewis recalled.
After beating on the riders, the mob turned on reporters and then Justice Department official John Seigenthaler, who was beaten unconscious and left in the street after helping two riders.
“Then they turned on my colleagues and started beating us and beat us so severely, we were left bloodied and unconscious in the streets of Montgomery,” Lewis recalled.
As the mob headed his way, Freedom Rider James Zwerg said he asked for God to be with him, and “I felt absolutely surrounded by love. I knew that whether I lived or died, I was going to be OK.”
The mob beat him so badly that his suit was soaked in blood.
“There was nothing particularly heroic in what I did,” he said. “If you want to talk about heroism, consider the Black man who probably saved my life. This man in coveralls, just off of work, happened to walk by as my beating was going on and said ‘Stop beating that kid. If you want to beat someone, beat me.' And they did. He was still unconscious when I left the hospital.”
To quell the violence, Attorney General Robert Kennedy sent in 450 federal marshals.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Podcast: The controversial day that Robert Kennedy came to the University of Mississippi
Retired U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Edward Ellington talks with Mississippi Today's Bobby Harrison and Geoff Pender about former U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy's speech at the University of Mississippi less than four years after the riots that occurred after the integration of the school. Ellington, who at the time headed the Ole Miss Speaker's Bureau as a law school student, recalls the controversy leading up to the speech.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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