Hell broke loose at the Capitol Monday afternoon when two renegade legislators, Rep. Steve Holland, D-Plantersville, and Rep. Jamie Franks, D-Mooreville, filed an injunction against Gov. Haley Barbour, telling him he cannot end the special session without giving the House the chance to restore Medicaid benefits to 65,000 low-income and disabled Mississippians, who are losing coverage under the Medicaid bill Barbour signed during the special session. At least 5,000 of those are ineligible for Medicare, but Barbour and his Senate allies assure them that the U.S. will provide temporary assistance.
"I'm convinced that most of what's going on has been scare tactics," Sen. Alan Nunnelee, R-Tupelo. He added: "The governor has gone to Washington and met with officials from the Department of Human Services, and they gave him every assurance that waivers will be passed; there will be no lapse in coverage for any of these patients.
The Senate contends that it is "outside the scope of the call," as Nunnelee put it, for the House to reconsider the Medicaid bill. But the House has ignored those boundaries, passing a resolution asking the governor to extend the special session, which he has refused.
Right after Barbour announced Monday that was dissolving the special session at 4:30 p.m.—one more affront to House legislators who were gathering at 4 p.m. to discuss Medicaid—Franks and Holland asked Hinds County Chancery Judge William Singletary to issue a temporary restraining order, which he signed at 4:28 p.m., saying that the governor could be exceeding his authority because the House was still considering a matter for which it was convened and because not doing so could put "Plaintiffs, the members of the House of Representatives and thousands of Mississippians potentially at risk of irreparable harm."
As we go to press, we await Mr. Barbour's next move.
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