On March 23, Mississippi SCR 533 was killed in the legislature. This is the proposal to restore the statewide initiative in Mississippi. The Senate had passed it with a requirement that a petition be signed by 12% of the number of registered voters. Then the House amended it to 12% of the last gubernatorial vote. The Senate response was simply to ignore the bill, and it is now too late for it to pass.

This is the second year in a row in which the Mississippi legislature has failed to restore the initiative. The State Supreme Court had invalidated it a few years ago because they said it was flawed. It said signtures were needed from each of Mississippi’s five U.S. House districts, but then some years later, Mississippi lost one of its U.S. House seats because the Census showed its population growth had not kept up with the national average.