When Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Speaker of the House Phillip Gunn announced last week that the Mississippi Legislature will reconvene on May 18 to complete its 2020 session, members of the local delegation were left to wonder how much of the roughly 40 days remaining in the session would be addressed.
Rep. Gary Chism (R-Columbus) insisted that the Legislature would “pick up where we left off” but conceded the landscape has been greatly altered since the session was suspended on March 18.
Other members of the local delegation say many of the bills that might have gone through previously will be viewed more critically when the Legislature returns to Jackson.
“What started out as a horse in January might become a mule in May,” said Rep. Kabir Karriem (D-Columbus).
“In light of the situation, I do think a lot of what we were contemplating before won’t go forward now,” said Sen. Angela Turner-Ford (D-West Point). “We’re going to have to be more guarded in our approach, especially when it comes to spending.”
Rep. Rob Roberson said he also expected a scaled-down agenda.
“I’m sure there are going to be things that don’t move forward, and there are going to be some things we’re going to have to deal with that we didn’t before coronavirus,” he said. “Some things can be held over. Other things will require we act in this session.”
The Legislature actually convened for a single day Friday to address one of those issues that emerged from the COVID-19 crisis. Both chambers voted unanimously on a bill to grant itself sole authority to administer $1.25 billion in federal funds from the CARES Act earmarked to help states recover costs associated combating the virus. Previously, Gov. Tate Reeves expressed his intention to administer the funds.
When legislators reconvene later this month, they’ll find their work complicated by the uncertainty of what kind of budget they’ll have to work with in Fiscal Year 2021. The Legislature must approve a budget before the start of the new fiscal year, which begins July 1.
“It’s a unique situation because, right now, we have no real idea of what we’re going to have in the budget,” Roberson said. “Some things we may have to cut back on what we planned to spend.”
Chism said that might mean bringing back legislation approved before the March 18 recess for a reduction in funding.
“We will have 11 months worth of numbers by the second week of June, which is about the time we’ll have to really put the budget together,” he said. “So it’s not like we won’t have any information; it’s just that we really don’t know what to expect on the revenue side after the coronavirus. My educated guess is that we’ll use the figures we had in 2008 during the recession to be a guide. That year, revenue was down about 6 percent.”
Legislators said bills that don’t have a funding component will be easier to move through the process.
While many of those bills can be carried over to next year’s session, some will require immediate attention.
“One of those issues is criminal justice reform,” Karriem said. “We have elderly and other vulnerable people who are eligible to be released because of coronavirus. We need to make sure we put that in motion and get these people out of prison.”
That isn’t the only prison-related issue the Legislature should address this session, Karriem said.
“People may have forgotten that before we had the coronavirus crisis we had a Department of Corrections crisis,” Karriem said. “We are facing a lawsuit by the Justice Department over our prisons. The situation is hard to bear and has to be addressed immediately. It can’t wait.”
Roberson said another likely casualty in this year’s session will be a bond package, which helps fund projects in municipalities and counties throughout the state.
“I can’t say for sure, but I would not be surprised if we don’t have a bond package this year, given the circumstances,” Roberson said.
The last time the Legislature didn’t put together a bond package was in 2017, but Chism doesn’t think that’s likely to be repeated this session, despite the budget uncertainty.
“We’ll have a bond package,” Chism said. “Every year, we have money that rolls off the books, and we’ll use that amount in our bond package. It may not be a big amount, but we’ll have something, I’m sure.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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