The Mississippi Constitution, article 15, sec. 273, contains the procedure for initiatives to change the state Constitution. That part of the Constitution was written in 1992, when Mississippi had five U.S. House Districts. The Constitution says, “The signatures from any one congressional district shall not exceed one-fifth of the total number of signatures required to qualify an initiative petition. If an initiative petition contains signatures from a single congressional district which exceed one-fifth of the total number of required signatures, the excess number of signatures shall not be considered by the Secretary of State.”
The problem with that is that after the 2000 census, Mississippi lost one of its U.S. House seats, so that it now only has four. No one has even tried to circulate an initiative petition since 2000, except that now State Senator Joey Fillingane wants to circulate an initiative. The Attorney General said that the signatures should be collected from each of the U.S. House districts that formerly existed, but which don’t exist any longer. That seems peculiar, so Senator Fillingane, an attorney, has filed a lawsuit in state court to get a court ruling on how the State Constitutional requirement for a distribution requirement for signatures can be squared with the fact that the Constitution assumed there would be five districts, and yet there are no longer five districts.
The case is Fillingane v Hosemann, G2009-399-O/3, Hinds Co. Chancery Court.
Mississippi is one of the 24 states that has a statewide citizen’s initiative process where the state gov has made it so difficult to do one that they rarely happen (Illinois and Wyoming are a couple of others that are in this category).
The citizen’s initiative process ought to be more user friendly so people in the state can actually utilize it.
Since Mississippi lost one U. S. House seat, there has been at least one legislative proposal to change the signature requirement to 1/4 from each of the four House districts, but the proposal failed.
Fillingane wants to circulate an initiative for voter ID. He was one of the three Republican senators who blocked a voter ID bill which also had a provision for early voting. These three have gotten a lot of criticism over this.
Another initiative has been filed involving the tobacco tax, but depending on what final action the legislature takes, this initiative may not be necessary.
Since Mississippi’s initiative process took effect in 1993, only two initiatives have reached the ballot. Both concerned term limits, and both were defeated.
In 1998, a ban was put on out-of-state petition circulators, making the initiative process even more onerous.
The MORONS in the MS regime apparently never heard about Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U.S. 814 (1969) (equal regional treatment of electors who sign petitions).
Par for the course in this EVIL New Age of nonstop LAWLESS MORONS in ALL govt regimes.
Here’s The Clarion-Ledger article on an effort to have the suit tossed out: Initiative lawsuit.
Rep. Credell Calhoun is black.
As one of my distinguished political science professors once said, “We’d be better off if we just cut off the whole south from the rest of the country.”
#5: Then the South wouldn’t have been able to inflict Lyndon Johnson, Jimmuh Carter, and Slick Willie on the rest of the nation.
Where was this “distinguished” asshole from? It must be some wonderful place.
Your professor had a point. We tried like hell to LEAVE the rest of the country one time (and legally)…but you fought and died to keep us in ! Don’t fight so hard the next time.