Jackson Free Press

Perhaps as an omen to the contentiousness ahead, the Mississippi Legislature convened the new session Tuesday in the restored Old Capitol—the building where Mississippi once voted to secede from the union. Gov. Haley Barbour and former Gov. William Winter, governors from different sides of the political aisle, attended the opening ceremony, followed by guests such as noted columnist Bill Minor.

Barbour warned that the state is in for a tight budget year, with a 2 percent cut in the state budget, but pledged to "to work with (legislators) as we try to tackle the people's business."

But Winter, who served as governor between 1980 and 1984, reminded members of the House that the tight budget year was nothing compared to budgets faced by past Legislatures.

"We have problems, but our problems are dwarfed by the problems that have confronted other legislatures. The first time I came to Jackson, I was nine years old. My father was a member of the Legislature. That 1932 session … was confronted with a total amount of $1,326 in the state treasury, and we owed almost $6 million. That's how bad it was," Winter said, adding that members of the Legislature had to write IOUs to stay in motels, and that the first resolution it passed that year was a resolution authorizing the chairman of the state tax commission to borrow $750 from the local bank to buy postage stamps to mail employees income tax information.

Winter said the state government beat the Great Depression by "refusing to give into it," and pointed to successful government work programs—like TVA, CCC and FHA—sponsored by then-president Franklin Roosevelt, which helped build the nation's infrastructure and pull the state out of the depression,

"I saw firsthand how widely public office, created by politicians, could improve the lives of so many people. I saw politics as a problem-solver. …The point I want to make that it is in times like these that we have the best opportunity to make the hard, tough decisions that can ultimately lead to a better way of living. It takes bipartisan leadership to do that," Winter said, adding that "only a political system that is compassionate and humane" can hope to last.

Hurricane Katrina severely damaged the Old Capitol in 2005 when it peeled away copper roofing and allowed a rush of water to inundate the plaster interior, but the building officially stands open this week.