As far as legislative priorities stated by both House Speaker Jason White, R-West, and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, some things are still alive in the Legislature, and some have died by the hands of the political process.
As the week quickly moves, the Legislature will come even closer to its most important deadline, March 29, when final proposals for general bills and constitutional amendments will be due. By then, even more of this year’s top priorities could be dead and gone.
At this point, four major initiatives proposed by the lieutenant governor and House speaker are dead unless they choose and successfully get a two-thirds majority in their chamber to suspend the legislature’s rules and revive those bills.
Those that are totally dead as of Friday are state retirement system benefits reforms, ballot initiative restoration, suffrage restoration for some nonviolent felony holders and an education reform that would have allowed students to more easily transfer between school districts.
Other priorities such as income tax cuts are very much still alive and some hang by a thread, such as school choice expansion, which has only vehicle left: An increase in state funding for the Children’s Promise Act, a tax-credit program for families donating to charitable organizations, including private schools.
As for other education reforms, it would seem that Senate action earlier in the session that killed several House school choice bills has soured White’s position on considering any of the Senate’s proposals.
On Thursday, White posted to X.com, formerly Twitter, saying that a now-revived Senate effort to ban cellphone use in classrooms will not receive a warm welcome in the House.
“No need to send a milquetoast, very lame Senate Education agenda back to the House, it’s not even worthy of discussion…,” White writes. “We showed the Senate what Mississippi’s education future looks like with the House bills, and they wholeheartedly rejected them without so much as a whisper. Mississippians are beginning to take notice of the Lt. Governor and his Senate leaders doing the bidding of the status quo. Somebody will have to answer for it sooner or later.”
On Wednesday, the Mississippi Senate passed a bill back to the House that would, among other things, require pharmacy benefit managers, a sort of middlemen who controls drug prices and drug health plans, to be more transparent with the pharmacies they do business with.
The bill, House Bill 1123, would also allow the Mississippi Board of Pharmacy to conduct audits and prevent PBMs from conducting spread pricing, which is the act of paying insurers more for drugs than pharmacists as a way to raise profits.
The bill would also prevent PBMs from incentivizing patients to pay for drugs at their affiliated pharmacies by offering cheaper prices for the same drugs sold at other pharmacies.
HB 1123 now heads back to the House where lawmakers can either vote to send the bill to Reeves’ desk, send it to conference for further negotiation or kill it.
White told reporters at the onset of the 2025 session that it was a House priority to address PBM business practices, which the Mississippi Independent Pharmacists Association say has in the past caused independent pharmacists to close, and will likely cause more to in the future.
Last week, the Legislature kept alive a proposal to ban Diversity, Equity and Inclusion from K-12 public schools and universities and colleges.
On Tuesday, the Senate passed House Bill 1193 and sent it back to the House to either approve a few changes made or send it to conference, where both House and Senate lawmakers will try to iron out one final agreement.
Both House and Senate Republicans have been gunning for anti-DEI legislation but with different approaches.
The legislation sent back to the House removed a university and college efficiency taskforce committee that was originally in the Senate plan, and it also did not feature several education bans that were in the original House proposal.
The issue has also divided the legislature entirely along the party line between Republicans and Democrats. On the right, proponents argue DEI policies and education discriminate and put people into victims and “oppressive” boxes.
Opponents of anti-DEI legislation in Mississippi within the Legislature argue those policies helped to provide equitable and equal opportunities for minority groups in Mississippi throughout and following the civil rights movement of the 20th century.
For other legislative updates from last week, check out these stories below.
Grant McLaughlin covers the Legislature and state government for the Clarion Ledger. He can be reached at gmclaughlin@gannett.com or 972-571-2335.
