Jackson Free Press

Flaggs protests ends…Abortion bill on life support…Governor gets veto happy…Question of the week: Will MAEP be fully funded while the state employees get a pay raise?...The hot air in the Capitol could be cleaner by Thursday…These are the topics for this thread, unless of course, you have others you want to discuss.

After some serious negotiations, Rep. Flaggs agreed to end his protest of reading the bills until MAEP was fully funded. According to sources, Reps. Brown and Stringer made a quasi-commitment to fully fund MAEP if the numbers held up. (By numbers, I mean the recent tax revenue figures that show we are nearly $200 million over our revenue estimates.) While the negotiations were taking place, Rep. Fredericks, Rep. Straughter and myself, kept the bill reading going until we had gotten word from Flaggs to stop. Also, I, as the vice-chair, had called a meeting of the Enrolled Bills Committee to consider certain bills to look over, including the MAEP bill. The committee has the power to meet to proofread bills before they are sent to the governor. If the committee decides a bill is not duly enrolled, then the committee can sit on a bill, even though it has passed both houses. Without any fanfare, the message was sent clearly that many members were concerned about fully funding MAEP. After a couple of days, the committee meeting was cancelled, but calling the meeting served its purpose.

The abortion ban bill received a death sentence when the Senate decided to send the bill to conference. The Senate wants to put back the original language into the bill that dealt with a woman viewing a sonagram and listening to the fetal heartbeat before consenting to an abortion, while keeping the ban langauge intact. Rep. Holland had said that if the bill went to conference, he would just let it sit there and die in conference. No indication if there has been a change of heart has been given.

Gov. Barbour vetoed two bills last week. The first one stops the legislature from raiding the Rainy Day Fund to balance the budget for FY07. Barbour cited the excess revenue earnings as his reason for the veto. The second bill was the second version of the tobacco tax increase/grocery tax decrease bill. Barbour cited the uncertainty of the revenues coming in as the reason for this veto. I'll let you all decipher that one without an editorial.

Answer to the question: Dunno (Don't know) It will depend on how committed Brown and Stringer are in making it so. Odds are 6:1 they will, which means it is possible, but far from a sure thing.

The Clean Indoor Act Bill, authored by yours truly, is sitting on the Governor's desk. He has until March 23 to sign it, veto it, or let it become law without his signature. Odds are 6:5 he will sign it, which means that it is almost a done deal.

Previous Comments

ID

170243

Comment

Rep. Fleming -- I just referred to this post on my About.com site, so it might be getting a lot more traffic in the coming days. Or not, depending on how many people actually click on the hyperlinks. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-03-21T00:53:05-06:00

ID

170244

Comment

As one would imagine, I'm not horribly opposed to letting the ban DIE.

Author

Lori G

Date

2006-03-21T07:17:54-06:00

ID

170245

Comment

Ali: Not surprised at all. BTW, you seem to have a fan club at MississippiPolitics.com. TH: Thanks for the link.

Author

Rep. Erik Fleming

Date

2006-03-26T12:14:38-06:00

ID

170246

Comment

Some friends of mine are going to the conference this afternoon. Almost went myself, but I've got a sick relative I need to keep an ear out for. Why do I get the feeling that the lawsuit in favor of closed primaries was a factor in the sudden demise of this bill--but you know, I don't really need to find out how the sausage was made. It still looks like it'll be pretty doggone good sausage. I would love to blog tomorrow afternoon at 5:01 that this pandering monstrosity will go nowhere during this legislative session. There are humane ways to reduce abortions in this state by giving women better options, and I hope the legislature pursues those just because I know abortion is an unpleasant procedure for many reasons. But this is not the way forward. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-03-26T14:41:49-06:00

ID

170247

Comment

Update: The Governor signed the Clean Air Act on March 23.

Author

Rep. Erik Fleming

Date

2006-03-27T08:50:38-06:00