What To Expect: A New Year, Same Tired Republican Excuses

This is Part 2 of a series this week highlighting what to expect from the Mississippi Legislature this session.

If the very calculated and well-funded defeat of Initiative 42 did not clearly spell out that the Republicans are not for the funding of a public education system, there is not much else we could say on this blog to prove this fact to you. 

The problem is, our education system needs an infusion of money. We can go round and round about where the money should come from, how it should be spent on kids and not administration, and on and on and on. But the fact remains, quality people and facilities cost money. Money that our schools do not have, as repeated over and over again during the Initiative 42 battle. Money that is needed – money to pay for teachers, money to pay for walls and roofs, money to pay for textbooks and working computers.

With all those big businesses and lobbyists and associations backing the anti-Initiative 42 on behalf of Gov. Bryant, Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, and Speaker Gunn, all three are now beholden to them and their wish list of tax breaks and incentives for companies and businesses. 

Republicans have announced that they plan to fund K-12 at current levels. Which means, underfund K-12 for another year. Instead of coming up with a plan to generate revenue, or not cut more corporate taxes, Republicans are developing a plan to move the goal posts and change the MAEP formula so the same or less amount of money will magically fully-fund education. 

When looking at what’s going on around the country in terms of charter schools, it’s hard not to get cynical about the next four years for public education. Republicans have basically been setting up unrealistic goals for public schools or defunding schools to the point where they cannot meet basic standards (or a combination) in order to convert schools to “charter schools.” But don’t think of these schools as the ones fought over a few years back – these are for-profit institutions using state money to run schools. ALEC and their friends in Indiana have already developed model legislation that will surely make its way to Mississippi.

Tea Party Seeks to Take Away More Voting Rights

A leading Tea Party group, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), is striking at the heart of the 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution: the direct election of United States Senators by popular vote. If we needed another example that Tea Party Republicans are living in 1913, when the 17th Amendment was ratified, this is certainly it. For all of the Tea Party's claims about preserving the Constitution, they seem to be in an awful hurry to weaken it.

What ALEC seeks to do is allow state legislatures to nominate hardcore Tea Party candidates for the United States Senate and bypass the electorate when ALEC thinks it is necessary. Their reasoning is simple: to push their Tea Party agenda, they need to find a new mechanism to select the candidates that they want rather than abide by the will of the voters. The best way to do that is to take control away from the voters and place it in the hands of state legislatures that are agreeable to their positions. Bear in mind that what ALEC is starting out with is not a full repeal of the 17th Amendment, but we can see that this is the beginning of that process.

Let's look at Mississippi's legislature. At last count, we have 32 Republicans and 20 Democrats in the Senate and 65 Republicans and 57 Democrats in the House. Simple math tells us that if the legislature was voting on candidates, a Tea Party Republican would win. If a Senate nominee like Thad Cochran is not conservative enough for the Republican base, yet he still wins the nomination, the Tea Party-led legislature could reject the decision of their primary voters and nominate someone like Sen. Chris McDaniel (R-Ellisville) instead.

To find a list of Mississippi legislators who are members of ALEC, click HERE.

Let's say that this idea floated by ALEC is in effect and our legislature, as it exists today, got to make nominations for our next United States Senator. One can expect it would be a spectacle of national magnitude surpassing the 2008 vote for Mississippi's House Speaker.

All of this gets back to the civil war within the Mississippi Republican Party where the Haley Barbour group is getting squeezed out and the Tea Party, encouraged by the likes of Speaker Gunn (R-Clinton) and the Senate Conservative Coalition, has taken control.

Mississippi Republicans have been consumed by the Tea Party and recent polling backs up that argument. The poll noted that 55 percent of Mississippi Republican voters want someone more conservative than Republican Sen. Thad Cochran.

Voters should get Republican members of the legislature on record whether they would support state Sen. Chris McDaniel or Sen. Thad Cochran. If you see a Republican legislator at a football game this weekend or any other time for that matter, be sure ask him or her whether he or she is on Team Cochran or Team McDaniel. Let the pivoting begin!

I guess the saying is true: you can either be a Tea Party Republican or a rational person in Mississippi.

Update: Senator Chris McDaniel Distances Himself from Neo-Confederates, But There Are Pictures

In a blog post by Geoff Pender over at The Clarion-Ledger late this afternoon, McDaniel took a defensive stance regarding his reported attendance at a Neo-Confederate event in August. 

A Screenshot of the Jones County Rosin Heels Website

McDaniel claims to have been at an ALEC event in Chicago (a whole different issue) the weekend that his name was featured on a Rosin Heels conference invite chock full of radical speakers. But the Jones County Senator goes on to admit that he was definitely a speaker at a Rosin Heels meeting just weeks before.

It might have been hard for McDaniel to deny that one.  Jones County Rosin Heels posted a photo on their website.


It is entirely possible that McDaniel decided he was more beholden to corporations than Neo-Confederates in Jones County during the 2nd week of August, and chose ALEC instead. But he courted them both, and was at least willing to be advertised on the Rosin Heels invite.

If corporations are people, too, I wonder if they only count as 3/5ths of one.

ALEC convention wraps up in Salt Lake City, Mississippi Republicans head home with marching orders from Corporate America

Well, this summer's meeting of the American Legislative Exchange has concluded, and several Mississippi Republican elected officials, including Speaker of the House Philip Gunn (R - Clinton), have returned home with new marching orders from the big corporations who make up ALEC's Board. In celebration of that, here's a music video that explains ALEC:



For more on ALEC and Mississippi, click here for a collection of previous posts.

Johnson & Johnson becomes the latest major corporation to leave radical ALEC group

In what has become a trend, another large American corporation is leaving the radical conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, an outfit known for pushing the legislation behind Florida's "stand your ground" law and numerous voter disenfranchisement laws.  Today, Johnson & Johnson announced that it would no longer be affiliated with the group that has been exposed of late as a front group for corporations looking to influence state legislation.  Some of the legislation ALEC has supported has been legislation that sought to disenfranchise minority voters.

Redistricting statutes being ignored by Republican legislators?

Rep. Bill Denny (R-Jackson)

If you were like me, you thought Friday's article in the Clarion-Ledger regarding the current state of redistricting signaled that something fishy was going on.  In short, neither Rep. Bill Denny (R-Jackson) nor Sen. Merle Flowers (R-Southaven), the chairmen of the House and Senate committees on redistricting, would say a word about the process used to draw the new district lines.  Rep. Denny did say that the plans had been submitted to experts, but said he didn't know who those experts were (Sounds like he's got total control of the situation, if you ask me.).  Sen. Flowers wouldn't comment at all, and Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves (R) said that the plans would be revealed in the next few weeks.

Does Bill Denny saying, "Take my word, I've drawn something" count?

It seems like the only bit of news the Republican leadership wanted to get out was that the maps were drawn.  Why would that be important?

Let me introduce you to Section 5-3-93 of the Mississippi Code:

The members of the committee shall draw a plan to apportion, according to constitutional standards, the membership of the Mississippi Senate and the Mississippi House of Representatives no later than fifteen (15) days prior to the scheduled adjournment of the next regular session of the Legislature following the delivery of the 2000 decennial census data to the state and every ten (10) years thereafter and at such other times as they may be directed by joint resolution of the Mississippi Legislature.

Provided, however, the committee shall not be required to present a plan to the Legislature prior to four (4) months after the publication of census data.

Well guess what Saturday was?  The 15th day prior to the scheduled adjournment of this legislative session.  That means that the plans had to have been drawn by the committee no later than Saturday.  The question then becomes, what it means for a committee to draw a plan?  This opens several lines of inquiry: Does it mean that the chairman of the committee can just put pen to paper?  And if that's the case, how do you know that the law has been satisfied if the maps are not released?  Or does it mean that a plan has to be voted upon by the committee?  It's almost a nonsensical requirement to force a committee to draw a map and not vote on it. And how does a "committee" draw a plan, anyway? By voting on it, I would presume.

So that's why Republicans were rushing to get the word out that they'd "drawn" maps.

111 Days and counting...

But the question of whether last Friday's dog and pony show passes the drawing test is not the only problem Republicans are facing with statutes governing reapportionment.  Check out Section 5-3-103 of the Mississippi Code:

Upon completion of apportionment plans, the committee shall present its plans to the Mississippi Legislature, which shall act on the plans not later than the next regular session of the legislature. The committees to which the plans are referred shall report their recommendations to their respective houses no later than the forty-fifth day of the legislative session.

This language would seem to give legislators another session in which to pass new maps, but the language of 5-3-93 mandates that a plan be passed this year.  (The statutory scheme seems to contemplate that the maps would have been drawn last year and voted on no later than this year.)  The problem 5-3-103 holds for Republicans is in the second sentence.  The 45th day of the legislative session was February 16, which was the deadline for making requests that general bills and constitutional amendments be drafted.  On that day, the House was busy tabling the motion to reconsider on the ALEC-style "Sunshine" Act, and the Senate was busy welcoming foreign investors interested in opening charter schools.

So with no maps voted on by the committees 14 days before sine die (the last day of the session), the new Republican leadership in the Legislature may be on thinning legal ice with regard to redistricting.  But as this group has shown time and time again, laws are for Democrats.

The New York Times reports on ALEC

In today's New York Times, Mike McIntire reports on the link between ALEC and state legislators.  I've covered ALEC and Mississippi legislators before in the posts linked below.  I recommend the New York Times article, as it does a good job describing how ALEC works.  Here are previous Cottonmouth posts on ALEC:

• Live Blogging of the battle over HB 122, the so-called "Sunshine Act" *FIGHT OVER; BILL DEAD*
• Who is ALEC? And why should you care? ***UPDATED 2/23/2012 - Link to list of Mississippi ALEC members***
• As promised: Mississippi's ALEC legislators
• The connection between ALEC, AT&T, and Rep. Jim Beckett 
• ALEC meetings, steak dinners, and Mississippi legislators 
• The AP picks up on Rep. Gary Chism's self-dealing and ALEC connections 
• A look at who is behind the Mississippi immigration legislation

***BREAKING*** - Senate sends Sunshine Act to conference

With most (if not all) Democrats voting no, the Senate sends the Sunshine Act to a conference committee after a brief debate.

***BREAKING*** - HB 211, the "Sunshine" Act, is before the Senate

Sen. Briggs Hopson, III (R - Vicksburg) is presenting HB 211 to the Senate at the moment.  This is the bill that would allow agencies to hire their own outside counsel.  This bill has been discussed here before.  Oh yeah, this bill had its genesis in ALEC.

A look at who is behind the Mississippi immigration legislation

I've touched on HB 488 a bit, which is Arizona/Alabama-style anti-immigrant legislation.  It cleared the House back on March 14th after a contentious debate, and now awaits committee assignment in the Senate.  The question has to be asked: why are non-border states like Alabama and Mississippi the hotbed of anti-immigrant legislation?  Well, it always helps to know who is pushing legislation.  In the case of HB 488, we can find out by looking at where its language came from.