JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – The Mississippi Legislature is unlikely to reinstate the ballot initiative process this year after the Senate president rejected the proposal on Monday.
The move comes days after the Senate voted 26-21 to pass a bill that would allow Mississippians to put some policy proposals on the statewide ballot. However, the bill needed another vote in the Senate, where Republican Sen. David Parker, D-Olive Branch, who chairs the Committee on Accountability, Efficiency, and Transparency, agreed to give the bill a Monday deadline. There was no debate because the bill was not debated.
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Parker said last week that efforts to revive the initiative process are “on life support” because of significant differences between the House and Senate. Republicans control both chambers.
Sen. David Parker (R-Olive Branch), chairman of the Mississippi Senate Committee on Accountability, Efficiency, and Transparency, speaks during a floor review Thursday, March 14, 2024, at the Mississippi State Capitol in Jackson, Mississippi. present a ballot initiative measure to
Since the 1990s, Mississippi has had a process for putting state constitutional amendments on the ballot, requiring an equal number of signatures from each of the five congressional districts. After the 2000 Census, Mississippi was reduced to her four districts, but the initiative’s language was not updated. In response, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled in a 2021 decision that the initiative process was invalidated.
In 2022 and 2023, the House and Senate disagreed on the details of the new initiative process.
Republican House Speaker Jason White said earlier this year that restoring the initiative was a central concern for many voters during the 2023 election.
In January, the House of Representatives adopted a resolution to reinstate the initiative process through a constitutional amendment, but a final two-thirds majority vote in the Senate would be required. The Senate bill did not require a two-thirds vote in the House because it would not change the state constitution, but it contained provisions that could make it difficult to get a vote in the House.
Under the House proposal, an initiative would need at least 150,000 signatures in a state with about 1.9 million voters. An initiative must receive at least 40% of the total votes to be approved. The Senate version would require 67% of the total vote.
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Parker and several other senators said they want to prevent out-of-state interest groups from pouring money into Mississippi to get contested ballots.
Both the House and Senate proposals would ban efforts to change abortion laws. Lawmakers cited Mississippi’s role in enacting the law that laid the groundwork for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn abortion rights nationwide.
