Jackson Free Press

A flurry of new bills hit House and Senate committees this month, bills that get little attention with the media focusing on cigarette tax bills and the Legislature's knot-twisting to fully fund Medicaid and the Mississippi Adequate Education Program. Most of the bills are destined for death as committee members roll their eyes and move on to the next page, but they speak volumes about state legislators.

Republican Rep. Gary Chism, R-Columbus, for example, is willing to take on Charles Darwin, putting a bill into the Judiciary A Committee demanding that the state board of education include language inside the front cover of science books describing evolution as only a theory.

"This textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory some scientists present as a scientific explanation for the origin of living things," the potential stipulation states. No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life's origins should be considered a theory. Evolution refers to the unproven belief that random, undirected forces produced living things. … Study hard and keep an open mind."

Chism told the Jackson Free Press that he did not believe in evolution.

"I do not believe that a fish decided to come out of the water, its fins became legs, and it lived on land," Chism said, adding that fossils, including those of organisms between the fish and amphibian stages, were not proof of evolution. He also did not consider new antibiotic-resistant strains of the flu virus a result of evolution, but an act of God.

"I think the Bible talks about plagues across the world, and I think many of those were God's will," Chism said. Ӆ I don't think they are anything more than the plagues that the Bible talks about."

Protecting Lives and Corporations
A life-support bill from Sumrall Republican Rep. Harvey Fillingane is yet another politics-laced hold-over from the 2005 Terry Schiavo debacle. House Bill 82, which is also slated for the Judiciary A Committee, forces the state to pick one side whenever relatives of a person in a vegetative state squabble over whether to keep the patient on life support or allow him to die.

"The official position of the state is that the person's life should be sustained, and therefore the life-support system shall not be removed," the bill states.

The bill makes no accommodations for who pays for the continued life-support.

Republicans are continuing their war on Attorney General Jim Hood's ability to sue the hell out of misbehaving corporations. Rep. Bill Denny, R-Jackson, submitted one of many bills this year that restrict the attorney general's ability to hire private attorneys to push cases like the $100 million WorldCom suit. House Bill 1414, SB 2389 and SB 2718, among others, decree that no state agency shall enter into a legal contract of more than $1 million with private attorneys without a hearing on the terms of the contract conducted by outside bodies, namely members of the Legislature.

Hood argues that the authors of these bills might as well come forward and say, "they don't want me to sue negligent corporations," because a hearing on each action will remove the tactical advantage of an unexpected filing and could eliminate potentially effective private contracts.

Following in the spirit of sunshine laws, Sen. David Baria, D-Bay St. Louis, offered SB 2195, a bill that requires a personal-services contract review board to establish standards and pre-approve all state agency advertising contracts worth more than $100,000.

The bill likely stems from a 2007 PEER report showing that $1.2 million of the $14.3 million the state paid out on advertising in 2006 went to TeleSouth Broadcasting Company. The company owns multiple stations across the state that carry the SuperTalk Mississippi radio format—the state's leading conservative talk radio. The same report revealed that TeleSouth dodged the state Personal Service Contract Review Board's competitive bid requirements after Republican Mississippi Department of Human Services Executive Director Don Taylor designated the company as a sole-source provider. Taylor showed no proof of the TeleSouth designation, such as the company's coverage in comparison to other potential contractors.

Of Health and Immigration
Currently, the only sex education in public schools deals solely with abstinence—a program with limited effectiveness according to many public health officials. But faced with the Mississippi's new record as the state with the highest teen pregnancy rate, legislators are submitting at least four bills this year to force the state Department of Education to create a fact-based sex-education program or sex-education pilot program in public schools. Democratic Reps. Alyce Clark of Jackson, Omeria Scott of Laurel, and Democratic Sens. David Jordan of Laurel, and John Horhn of Jackson, are leading the charge.

Democrats are also attacking Medicaid's face-to-face requirement for people looking to re-confirm their eligibility. The health program finances medical service for aged or disabled adults, or adults and children living at or below poverty level.

House and Senate Democrats have submitted at least four bills to eliminate face-to-face, and allow eligible people to file by mail, while Republicans in both chambers have submitted bills increasing restrictions, such as Southaven Sen. Merle Flowers' bill setting Medicaid re-certification eligibility to every six months, up from 12.

House Public Health Chairman Steve Holland, D-Plantersville, pointed out that federal law set the certification period at a year.

Rep. John Moore, R-Brandon, and W.T. Mayhall Jr., R-Southaven, join Flowers in submitting bills demanding Medicaid recipients verify their citizenship, despite arguments from the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance that one of the last things an undocumented worker will do is sign a government application requiring a Social Security number.

Immigration continues to be a hot topic this year. Rep. Deryk Parker, D-Lucedale, submitted HB 448, which makes hiring or continuing to employ undocumented workers a felony offense. A new law enacted this year allows the state to yank government contracts from contractors who hire undocumented workers, but the 2008 law stopped short of making those employers felons.

Rep. Reecy Dickson, D-Macon, submitted HB 664, which creates a task force to study the actual impact of immigrants on poverty in the state. If passed, the resultant report would either strengthen or compromise a 2006 report by former state auditor Phil Bryant concluding that immigrants had a negative impact on the state.

The Bryant report did not take into account sales and property tax generated by immigrants, which other reports in states like Texas describe as a boon to local economies.

Two other House bills want to force all state agencies and state documents to be printed in English-only versions.

No More Rewards
Some legislators are eyeing Gov. Haley Barbour's habit of pardoning convicted murderers. A 2008 Jackson Free Press investigation revealed that the governor pardoned murderers Paul Warnock, Clarence Jones, Bobby Clark and James Kimble. Barbour also suspended the murder sentence of Michael Graham, who killed his ex-wife in 1989 with a shotgun blast to the head. All the murderers to whom Barbour granted relief were killers of their wives or girlfriends except for Kimble, and all were trustys working in the governor's mansion.

Reps. Brandon Jones, D-Pascagoula; Bobby Moak, D-Bogue Chitto; and Bennett Malone, D-Carthage, joined Sens. Michael Watson, R-Pascagoula, and Sidney Albritton, R-Picayune, in filing bills excluding people convicted of murder and manslaughter from trusty status, which would keep them from working at the governor's mansion, and out of the governor's sphere of influence. Jones also filed HB 301, a bill requiring the governor's office to contact the sheriff and District Attorney of a county where an individual committed a felony prior to their release.

Coastal representatives are still stinging from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, including Baria, who launched multiple pro-consumer bills this year. One of them is SB 2024, which places the burden of proof for a water damage exclusion on the insurance companies, as opposed to consumers. Hood had launched more than one lawsuit against insurance companies after Katrina, arguing that the company required policy-holders to prove their home had been damaged by wind (which was covered by hurricane policies) versus floodwater (which was only covered by flood insurance).

Many of the homes were washed away entirely, obliterating evidence as to whether the washing was done by wind or water. SB 2024 makes any future assumption as to the reason for a vanished house with a bias to the policy-holder.

Baria is also submitting legislation in SB 2073 that designates certain insurance policies containing "concurrent causation exclusions" as unfair and deceptive. An anti-concurrent causation clause in a policy allows insurance companies to deny a claim when an excluded peril adds to damage done by an included peril. For example, wind (which is covered) may have blown off your roof, but water (not covered) also coursed through your kitchen, allowing insurance companies to exclude the entire damage.

In addition to these bills, Baria submitted SB 2175, which forces any Mississippi insurance company offering property and casualty insurance in another state to include property and casualty coverage in Mississippi. This bill is a direct response to insurance companies' decisions to pull some property coverage along the Coast in the aftermath of Katrina.

Previous Comments

ID

143214

Comment

I know we're not supposed to call names on the web site, but if someone is a complete and utter moron, don't we risk soft pedaling the truth if we fail to call him so? I speak of Gary Chism, of course. I trust that his bill dies like the quick death it deserves, if only for the potential litigation costs, but good grief! "This textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory some scientists present as a scientific explanation for the origin of living things," the potential stipulation states. Evolution is not a controversial theory in biology, whatsoever. Chism has no idea what a "theory" is in science. Plate tectonics is a "theory." General relativity is a "theory." But why am I even bothering to dispute this man? He believes antibiotic resistance arises from God's will. Honestly, we should shoot him out of a cannon toward Afghanistan, where the Taliban would welcome him with open arms.

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2009-02-02T21:56:11-06:00