Jackson Free Press

"I don't care if you are (a) Democrat, Republican, Independent—and I have been all three of them. Sometimes I don't know what the heck I am. I don't care if you are communist. If you have a bill, I want to hear it."

—Rep. Jeff Smith, R-Columbus, responding to Democrats' claims that Republican moves to eliminate repealers, provisions that requiring lawmakers to renew legislation periodically, are designed to quash minority-party dissent.

Why it stinks: In spring 2011, then-Democratic state Rep. Jeff Smith filed as an independent to run for reelection and later, officially, picked up the GOP mantle and became a Republican. We don't care about that. People switch parties all the time. But during his time as a Republican, Smith, who also chairs the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which oversee taxation, has walked the Republican Party line. That has included ignoring not only calls to fully fund the Mississippi Adequate Education Program or to expand Medicaid, which the federal health-reform law permits, but to limit open debate on both. As a rank-and-file member, Smith has very little power to move legislation on his own, but for a member of the legislative leadership who claims to be open-minded to all viewpoints, Smith hasn't exactly been outspoken on letting his colleagues in the minority Democratic Party be heard.