The Mississippi Legislature: 2021 session in review

In a year when the heads of Mississippi’s legislative bodies spent months bickering and exchanging recriminations, the session ended on Thursday, April 1, with a whimper.

The speaker’s plan to phase out Mississippi’s income tax was rejected by the Senate, and the lieutenant governor’s alternative to the medical marijuana program, overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2020, was rejected by the House. The rancor among political leaders meant the people of Mississippi were spared passage of voter suppression bills, anti-protesting legislation and other bad ideas making their way through Republican legislatures across the country this year.

The SPLC Action Fund tracked 254 bills in the Mississippi Legislature. We spent most of the session on defense, trying to kill bad bills that would restrict access to the polls or measures that would chill peaceful protest. But we were also fortunate to work with friends who helped advocate for positive change. As we close the book on the 2021 Mississippi legislative session, we’re grateful to the people and organizations who did strong work against powerful headwinds. The following is an overview of the session prepared by various SPLC Action practice groups.

Children’s Rights

It was a good session for supporters of stronger public schools. A school funding bill, HB 1387, provided an additional $102 million, a 4% increase, to FY 2022 pre-K through grade 12 funding. The Legislature also passed a law that holds school districts harmless from having to calculate attendance to receive funding. Wrapping up a successful session for public school funding, SB 2971, a school voucher tax credit that was slipped into the big bond bill, was removed by the Senate in the final days of the session.

The SPLC Action Fund partnered with the Mississippi College School of Law’s Education Law and Policy Clinic to advocate for several bills designed to bring Mississippi into conformity with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The core benefits of passing these changes would be better outcomes for students with disabilities and clearer administrative guidance for teachers and truancy officers. Despite Republican sponsorship and the support of the Mississippi Department of Education, these bills died in the Senate Education Committee. We are optimistic that these bills will make it further through the process in 2022.

Criminal Justice Reform

A longtime priority, raising the minimum age for secure detention in juvenile detention centers from 10 to 12, is now law.

A modest parole reform bill, SB 2795, is now on the governor’s desk. This bill would extend parole eligibility.

More robust parole reform measures, a jail census data bill and a bill that would have made positive changes to Mississippi’s habitual sentencing laws died in the final days of the session.

All anti-protesting bills, including HB 83, died in committee.

Economic Justice Reform

One of our biggest victories of the session came with the passage of SB 2759, a bill that will increase Temporary Assistance for Needy Families payments in Mississippi by $90 a month.

While we were very pleased to see the speaker’s income tax phaseout plan die, it did contain a reduction of the grocery tax, a longtime policy priority that may finally be gaining traction in the Legislature.

Unfortunately, “Ban the Box ” legislation, which would prevent a state employer from inquiring about a person’s criminal history on job applications, and “Equal Pay” bills died in committee.

Immigrant Justice

One of the voter suppression bills that gained traction in the Mississippi Legislature targeted immigrants. The bill would have allowed the secretary of state to cross-reference voter data with unreliable databases for the purpose of removing voters from the voting rolls based on citizenship. After passing the House, this bill died in the Senate.

LGBTQ/Special Litigation

The most disappointing moment of this session came with the passage of an anti-trans athlete bill modeled after those passing in other legislatures this year.

We were pleased to work with a number of educators to help kill a bill that would have politicized the Department of Archives and History.

The bill to renew Mississippi’s Public Records Act, SB 2809, passed. We supported this legislation because this is the mechanism citizens use to access government documents.

Voting Rights

While voter purging bills passed in both chambers, none made it to the governor. HB 586, a voter purging bill that would have allowed the secretary of state to cross check voters’ names with unreliable databases to determine citizenship status, died in the Senate after passing the House. SB 2588, another voter purging bill modeled after Ohio’s purging law that would have allowed elections officials to remove voters form the rolls for simply failing to vote, died in the House after passing the Senate.

We supported a number of bills that would have promoted  voter accessibility. None of these made it out of committee. Ten of these bills dealt with establishing an early voting mechanism in Mississippi. The other bills that would increase accessibility included online voter registration (nine bills), easier absentee voting for college students (four bills), and motor voter legislation (three bills). Most of the good bills filed by legislators dealt with affording voters and would-be voters better access to the polls. The highest number of bills filed on a single subject in the Mississippi Legislature in 2021 dealt with the restoration of voting rights to people who complete their sentences — 22 bills.

Brandon Jones is policy director for the SPLC Action Fund in Mississippi.

Photo by Alamy